
True 

Manliness 



OMA-SrlUGHES 




LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

®jpqu-: . Sop^rfj^ fB 

Shelf_..H.E5' 



UNITED STATES OF AMEKICA. 



SPARE MINUTE SERIES, 



TRUE MANLINESS 



FROM THE WRITINGS OF THOMAS HUGHES. 



SELECTED BY 

I. E. BROWN. 



WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY 

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 






BOSTON: 
D. LOTHROP AND CO., 

FRANKLIN STREET, CORNER OF HAWLEY. 






*tV 



COPYRIGHT BY 

LOTHROP & CO. 



THOMAS HUGHES. 



[Preliminary Note. — Having somewhat rashly con- 
sented to write a short biographical preface to a volume of 
selections to be made in America from the writings of my 
friend, Mr. Hughes, I applied to him directly for the needful 
facts and dates. His answer was an autobiographical letter 
which I found so interesting that I resolved to print it, omit- 
ting only a few intimate allusions natural in such a communi- 
cation, but with which the public has nothing to do. My 
temptation was the greater that the letter was not intended 
for publication, and had, therefore, that charm of unpremed- 
itated confidence which is so apt to be wanting in more delib- 
erate autobiographies. I cannot consult him, (and I confess 
that I purposely waited till I could not) for he is already at 
sea, on his way to America, and I fear that friendship may 
have tempted me to an unwarrantable liberty, but I could not 
bring myself, even at the risk of seeming indiscreet, to deny 
to others what had given me so much pleasure. At any rate, 
the indiscretion is wholly my own and in direct violation of 
the injunction with which Mr. Hughes' letter concludes : " I 
hate the idea of being presented in any guise to any public ; 
so if you can't squelch the plan altogether, give only the driest 
and meagrest facts and dates." I feel somewhat as if I 
had been reporting a private conversation, and take upon 
myself in advance all the reproach that belongs of right to 
that scourge and desecrator of modern life, the " Interviewer." 
For the first time, I look forward with dread to my next meet- 
ing with an old friend, after having thus practised the famil- 
v. 



vi. Thomas Hughes. 

iar stage device of putting the right letter into the wrong 
cover. As the brief record of a well-spent and honorable 
life, devoted to unselfish ends and associated with notable 
friendships, Mr, Hughes' letter has a higher than merely per- 
sonal interest. Of any critical introduction to American 
readers no one could stand in less need than he. The same 
qualities of manliness, frankness, simplicity and sympathy, 
with whatever is generous and humane, that gave and con- 
tinue to " Tom Brown " a success that may be compared with 
that of " Robinson Crusoe," are not wanting in his other 
works. — J. R. L.] 



"I was born on October 20th, 1822, at Uffington, Berks, 
of which village my grandfather was Vicar. He was also a 
Canon of St. Paul's, and spent half the year at his house in 
Amen Corner, with which my first memories of London are 
connected. It was, till this year, the strangest quiet old nook 
in the city, behind its big timber gates, within one hundred 
yards of Fleet street on one side, and Newgate Market on 
the other, but the distant murmur of life only made the re- 
pose more striking in those days. Now they are building 
some new minor Canons' houses on the vacant ground beyond 
which will be opened out towards Newgate street, and the 
corner will be a thoroughfare. The most remarkable fact of 
my childhood happened there, as I was in the house (I be- 
lieve) with Sir Walter Scott, a great friend of my grandfather, 
on his last sad visit to London. 

" My grandmother was a very notable woman in many 
ways, and a great economist and early riser. She used to 
take me and my brother out shopping in the early morning, 
and our excursions extended as far as Billingsgate fish-mar- 
ket, then at the height of the career which has secured for it 
an unenviable place in our English vocabulary. It was 
certainly a strange place for a lady and small boys, and is 
connected with the most vivid of my childish memories. 
Toddling after my grandmother to the stall where she made 
her purchases, we came one morning on the end of a quarrel 



lliomas Hughes. vii. 



between a stalwart fish-fag and her fancy man. She struck 
him on the head with a pewter pot which flattened with the 
blow. He fell like a log-, the first blood I had ever seen, gush- 
ing from his temples, and the scene is as fresh as ever in my 
memory at the end of half a century. The narrow courts in 
that neighborhood are still my favorite haunts in London. 

" But my town visits were short. I was a thorough coun- 
try-bred boy, and passed eleven months in the year at the foot 
of the Berkshire chalk-hills, much in the manner depicted in 
' Tom Brown.' 

" I was sent to school at the early age of eight, to accom- 
pany my elder brother. It was a preparatory school for 
Winchester, and the best feature about it was the Winchester 
custom, called ' standing up,' which means that we were en- 
couraged to learn a great deal of poetry by heart, for which 
we got extra marks at the end of the half year. We were 
allowed (within limits) to choose our own poets, and I always 
chose Scott from family tradition, and in this way learned the 
whole of the 'Lady of the Lake,' and most of the ' Lay of 
the last Minstrel' and ' Marmion,' by heart, and can repeat 
much of them to this day. Milton reckoned highest for 
marks, but I was prejudiced against him in this wise : 
Not far from the school was Addington, a place of the then 
Duke of Buckingham, who was also a friend of my grand- 
father, who, with my grandmother, paid him a visit at the end 
of our first half year. We went over to sleep, and travel 
back home next day with the old folk, and in the morning 
before starting, the Duchess gave us each a sovereign, neatly 
wrapped up in white, glossy paper. It was the first piece of 
gold I ever had, and I kept it in my hand to look at on the 
journey. I was leaning out of the window of the carnage 
when my attention was suddenly called to some roadside 
sight, and I dropped the precious metal. My shout of anguish 
and dismay brought the carriage to a stand-still, and I had to 
confess. After some trouble my sovereign was found, and 



viii. Thomas Hughes. 



taken charge of by my grandmother, who, in due course, 
returned it to me, no longer in current coin of the realm, but 
in the shape of a pocket edition of Milton's poems, with 
' Thomas Hughes from the Duchess of Buckingham and 
Chandos ' written on the title page. I still possess the 
odious small volume, and have learnt to forgive the great 
Puritan, — indeed, I have read Masson's life of him with real 
interest in these latter days. But I never learnt a line of 
him by heart as a boy, and regret it to this day. 

" Those were evil days in Wessex, the time of the Swing 
riots and machine and rick burning. My father was the 
most active magistrate in the district, and was constantly in 
the saddle, keeping the King's peace. He was an old fash- 
ioned Tory, but with true popular sympathies, and had played 
cricket and football all his life with the men and boys of our 
village, and it is one of my proudest memories that only one 
man from Ufnngton joined the rioters, and he came back 
after three weeks ashamed and penitent. Amongst other 
good deeds, my father rode off alone one night and saved the 
house and chapel of a dissenting minister in a neighboring 
village from being sacked and burned. Nevertheless I can 
not pretend to say that I was brought up to look upon dis- 
senters as anything' but a stiff-necked and perverse genera- 
tion. 

" At the age of ten, February 1834, I was sent on to Rugby 
with my brother, as, happily for us, Arnold had been a col- 
lege friend of my father. Here I stayed till I was nearly nine- 
teen, starting from the bottom and ending in the sixth form, 
though by no means at the head of the school. 

" It was a very rough, not to say brutal, place when I went 
there, but much mended during those years. 

" I was a very idle boy so far as the regular lessons were 
concerned, and I expect I should have been advised to go 
elsewhere early in my career but for a certain fondness for 
history and literature which Arnold discovered in me and 



l^homas Hicghes. ix 



which (I fancy) covered a multitude of sins. He first struck 
it at a monthly examination of the Shell, then the form inter- 
vening between the fourth and fifth. He asked the head boy 
why it was the Romans had so specially rejoiced over the 
terms of a certain treaty with the Parthians (we were read- 
ing Horace, I think). It came all down to the lowest bench 
where I was, and I said, ' because they got back the eagles 
taken from Crassus,' and sent a gleam of pleasure into the 
Doctor's face which was getting rather grim. Up I went 
to the top of the form, and from that time he often asked me 
questions outside the text book and specially by way of illus- 
tration from Scott's novels, to which he was fond of referring. 
I could generally come to the point, having them at my fingers' 
ends, and was proud of my consequent recognition. To this 
day I remember the feeling of grief and humiliation which 
came across me when I failed him on a critical occasion. It 
was years after the above event when I was in the sixth, 
and some distinguished visitor (Bunsen, I think it was) was 
present at the lesson. We were reading the passage in 
Aristotle about old age, (is it in the Ethics or Politics ? I'm 
sure I forget) and he asked the head of the school to illus- 
trate from Scott's novels what Aristotle says about the char- 
acteristic of old age, to be absorbed in petty interests and to 
be careless about great contemporary events. Down came 
the question, past some very able and some very studious 
boys, since distinguished one way or another — past John 
Connington, Matt. Arnold, Sir R. Cross, to me — and then the 
Doctor paused for several seconds with a confident look. 
But no response came and he passed on, 'and I was left 
lamenting.' No one answered, and he had to remind us of 
the old Abbot, pottering away in his garden on the border, 
when Mary and her defeated followers ride up before Cross- 
ing, and the old monk leans on his spade and looks after 
them, saying, ' I could pity this poor Queen and these Lords, 
but what are these things to a man of four score — and it's a 



x. Thomas Hughes. 

fine growing morning for the young kale-wort ' — and so goes 
to his spading again. 

" I cannot help to this day wondering at the patience and 
forbearance both of him and my tutor, Cotton, afterwards 
Bishop of Calcutta, over my frightful copies of verses, and 
Greek and Latin prose. As I was head of the eleven at 
cricket, and of bigside at football, I naturally had but small 
leisure to devote to such matters, and consequently my copies 
were notorious for the number of picture frames they were 
certain to contain. — picture frames being the strong black 
marks which the Doctor used to make round bad, false 



concords 



|| munus hospitalis 



or quantities 



munera stare 



" He used to do it slowly and grimly, his under lip seem- 
ing to grow out as the pen went deliberately round the 
wretched words, and one did not feel good during the opera- 
tion. But as no boy enjoyed the sausage seller's buffooneries, 
or Socrates' banters more than I, (tho' I made sad hashes in 
construing them) I remained in favor, tho' incorrigible, till 
the end. 

" I carried away from Rugby dreadfully bad scholarship, 
but two invaluable possessions. First, a strong religious 
faith in and loyalty to Christ ; and secondly, open mindedness. 
It was said (and is still said, I believe,) of Arnold, by way of 
censure, that to him everything was an open question every 
morning of his life. And though he never made any direct 
effort to unsettle any of our convictions that I can remember, 
we went out into the world the least hampered intellectually 
of any school of English boys of that time. To this day I 
am always ready to change an old opinion the moment I can 
get a better one, and so I think it has been with many of my 
old school-fellows, though we believed ourselves to be a 
thorough true blue school. 



Thomas Hughes. xi. 

" Perhaps I also owe to Rugby my strong democratic bias, 
but I don't think it. I guess I was born so (or barn-zo, as 
Wessex chaw-bacon pronounced it in the famous story). As 
a little scrap in petticoats nothing pleased me so much as 
playing with the village children, and I could never understand 
why they shouldn't have all the things I had. At any rate 
it was at Rugby that I first was able to indulge my radical 
propensities. Up to my time, the school-close (or play- 
grounds) was kept as sacred ground, no 'lout' (as we 
politely called the neighboring lieges) being allowed to set 
foot within the precincts, and I had often noticed the insolent 
airs with which casual intruders in fustian or corderoy had 
been extruded, So when I became head of the eleven (and 
so a sort of constitutional monarch in the close) I asked the 
best cricketers amongst the ' louts ' to come in and practice 
with me on summer evenings, and got up matches with their 
club, to the great advantage, I still believe, of school as well as 
town. 

" I was dreadfully loath to leave, and when I was obliged, 
(as nineteen is the limit of ages) was much averse to going 
up to Oxford. I knew that my scholarship was too weak to 
allow me to take anything like high honors, and so, as my 
profession was to be the Bar, I wanted to go up to London at 
once and enter at an Inn of Court. My father, however, after 
consulting his legal friends, decided that I should go to Ox- 
ford, and accordingly I went up to his old College. Oriel, 
in February, 1842. My first year at Oxford was utterly 
wasted, except that I learned to pull a good oar, and perfected 
myself in boxing, which w r as then much in vogue, several 
prize-fighters being generally kept in pay by the under- 
graduates. The lectures were perfectly easy to me as I had 
read all the books at Rugby, and I employed no private tutor. 
I knew I couldn't take high honors, (or at any rate choose to 
think so) and as I happened to fall into an idle, fast set, just 
did as the rest, and made a fool of myself in all the usual 



xii. Thomas Hughes. 



ways. But I never much enjoyed that kind of thing and got 
very sick of it by the time I had taken my little-go, and 
towards the end of my second year, just before I was of age, 
the most important event of my life happened, for in the long 
vacation I became engaged to my wife, then a schoolgirl, the 
great friend of my only sister. This pulled me up short. Our 
parents very properly said we were silly young people and 
must not see one another for years, or correspond, that we 
might see whether we really knew our minds. I went back 
to Oxford quite a new man, knocked off all not absolutely 
necessary expense, and lived decently and soberly for the rest 
of my time, taking my degree the first moment I could without 
coaching, by which I saved money. Consequently, with the 
help of a small legacy of ,£200, which came to me at twenty- 
one from an old great-aunt, I came away quite out of debt 
and with some small balance towards furnishing chambers in 
London, which was fairly creditable, as, there being three of 
us up at once, my father only allowed us ^200 a year each. 
This was supposed to be too small for a fellow to live on ! ! 
Alas, it is even worse now, I fear ! 

" I had the good luck to be under Clough (the poet) and 
Fraser, now Bishop of Manchester, who were Oriel tutors at 
that time, and the latter of whom is still one of my closest 
friends. I went up, as I have said, believing myself still a 
Tory, but left Oxford a Radical. Something of the change 
was owing to the insolence of undergraduate life at that day, 
but more to a tour I took with a pupil through the North in 
the long vacation of my third year. My pupil was the son of 
a neighboring Berkshire squire, and all his father wanted was 
that I should keep him out of mischief. If he could be in- 
terested or taught anything, so much the better. We hap- 
pened to stop at a Commercial hotel in Lancashire on our 
way North, and in the bagman's room I got into an argument 
with some of the North county travellers on the subject of 
the Corn Laws, then prominently before Parliament. On this 



Thomas Hughes. xiii. 

first night I came speedily to the conclusion that I knew very 
little about the matter, and before I returned to Oxford for 
Michaelmas term I had become a good free-trader. 

" I was nearly twenty-two when I went up to London, 
straight from Oxford, to begin my legal career. My father 
kindly suggested that I should take a run on the Continent 
before settling down, to get up my French and German to 
the point at any rate of tolerably fluent small talk, and here 
again I have no doubt but he was right, as the want of early 
training of ear and tongue has left me a helpless mortal ever 
since. However, I was determined to lose not a month or a 
week if I could help it, and soon found myself in small rooms 
on the third floor at No. 15 Lincoln's Inn Fields, from the 
windows of which, on a fine day. I could see the Surrey hills. 
I paid ^30 a year for the chambers, and lived in them for 
another £70, keeping down my whole expenditure within 
^100 a year, a feat I am still rather proud of. I never could 
have done it but for a glorious old woman who kept the 
house, and did for all the inhabitants, of whom only two lived 
in their chambers. She had come up from Devonshire as a 
girl some fifty years before to that house where she had been 
ever since, and in all that time had never seen the Thames, 
which is, as you know, not five minutes' walk from Lincoln's 
Inn Fields ; nor St. Paul's, except the dome, from the top 
windows of No. 15. She still spoke with a delightful Devon- 
shire accent, all her U's being as soft as if she had left Tor- 
quay yesterday, and I won her heart at once by professing, 
or I should say acknowledging, a passion for junket, which she 
prepared in a reverent and enthusiastic manner on the slight- 
est excuse. As my wife that was to be lived in Devonshire, 
the coincidence was peculiarlv grateful to me, and the dear 
old woman, Roxworthy by name, could not have had my 
interests more at heart had I been her own son. 

"There I lived for two years and upwards pleasantly 
enough, for several old school and college friends had cham- 



xiv. Thomas Hughes. 



bers in the neighborhood. My engagement was a constant 
stimulus to work and economy, and made me indifferent as 
to society. I just visited two or three family friends on 
Sundays, and for the rest did very well without it. From my 
own experience I would have every youngster get engaged by 
the time he is twenty-one, though I am not prepared to main- 
tain that a long engagement is so good for girls as for boys. 
Mine at any rate was the making of me. My democratic 
instincts grew in strength during these years, notwithstanding 
the failure of my first practical endeavors to act up to them. 
One of these I will mention. Every house in the Square was 
entitled to a key of the five gardens, in which I spent most of 
the long summer evenings ; and, seeing the number of ragged 
children who came round the railings and looked wistfully 
through at the lawns and beds within, I extended my priv- 
ilege to them and used to let them in by the scores, and 
watch them tumbling on the grass and gathering the daisies 
with entire satisfaction. From the first, this outrageous pro- 
ceeding greatly scandalized the Beadle, whose remonstrances 
T entirely disregarded, until at last a notice came from the 
Trustees of the Square that the key of No. 1 5 would be called 
in. This threat so alarmed poor Mrs. Roxworthy that I was 
fain to promise amendment, and so ceased myself to frequent 
the gardens. At the end of thirty years a strong effort is 
being made, as you may see in the papers, to throw the gar- 
dens open; so I live in hopes before long of seeing my re- 
venge on the ghost of the Beadle of my day. 

" I read hard at the law, but it was very much against the 
grain, and my endeavors to master the subtleties of contin- 
gent remainders, executory devises, the scintilla juris, and 
all the rest of it, were only partially successful. I sometimes 
think I might have taken con amore to common law and to 
criminal business, but conveyancing and real property law 
had no attractions for me, beyond the determination, if I could, 
to make a living by them. I read with a very able con- 



Thomas Hughes. xv. 

veyancer and kindly old gentleman, who did his best to 
impart the mysteries to some six pupils. He soon found 
where my strength, such as it was, lay, and employed me in 
the preparation of deeds — such as appointments of new 
Trustees, where the operative part was quite simple common 
form, but long statements of fact had to be made in the re- 
citals. These I rather excelled at, and on the whole, by the 
time I was of standing to be called to the Bar, was probably 
about as fit for that ceremony as the average of my cotem- 
poraries. 

"Three months before it took place I was married, the 
probation which my wife's parents had very properly insisted 
on, having expired at the beginning of 1847, and we being 
found entirely in the same mind after our three years of 
separation. Most of our friends thought us mad, as we 
started on the vast income of ^400 a year. It was confi- 
dently foretold that we should be living on our friends or in 
the workhouse before long, which prophesies however were 
entirely falsified. We started in tiny lodgings, almost op- 
posite the house we now live in, and always managed to pay 
our way in the worst of times. And though I admit the ex- 
periment was a risky one, I have never repented it. 

"The year of my call, 184S, was the year of revolutions, 
and on the 10th of April I paraded, like the rest of respectable 
society, as a special constable, though with shrewd misgiv- 
ings in my own mind that the Chartists had a great deal to 
say for themselves. In which belief I soon found sympa- 
thizers. Frederick Maurice had recently been appointed Chap- 
lain of Lincoln's Inn, and was gathering round him a number 
of young Barristers and Students, whom he was putting to 
work in their spare time at a ragged school, and visiting the 
poor in a miserable district near Lincoln's Inn. Contact with 
our wretched clients soon made it clear to us that something 
more radical and systematic was needed to raise them to 
anything like independence. They were almost all in the 



xvi. Thomas Hughes. 

hands ot slop sellers, chamber masters, or other grinders of 
the faces of the poor. What could be done to deliver them ? 
In the autumn, one of our number spent some time in Paris 
and came back full of the material a*nd moral effects of asso- 
ciation amongst the workmen there. 

" We resolved to try the experiment and accordingly formed 
ourselves into a society for promoting' Workingmen's Asso- 
ciations, with Maurice as president. The idea grew on us 
apace, and soon called out an amount of enthusiasm which 
surprised ourselves. We were all busy men, tied to offices 
from ten till five, so we met at six in the morning and eight 
at night to settle our rules, and organize our work. We were 
all poor men too, but soon scraped together enough money 
to start our first Association. This we resolved should be a 
tailoring establishment, for which we could ourselves, with the 
help of our friends, find sufficient custom in the first instance. 
We had no difficulty in hiring good airy workshops, but how 
to fill them was the rub. We were now in communication 
with a number of poor workpeople, especially amongst the 
Chartists, and, to cut a long story short, started our Associa- 
tion with a slop-worker who had been in prison as manager, 
and some dozen associates of kindred opinions in the work- 
room. 

" I needn't trouble you with any details of the Christian 
Socialist movement, of which this was a beginning, and which 
made a great noise in the press and elsewhere at the time. 
It has survived any number of follies and failures, and has 
gradually spread till there is a union of Societies all over the 
kingdom, doing a work for our poorer classes which one 
can only wonder at and be thankful for. 

" We wrote tracts, and started a small paper, ' The Chris- 
tian Socialist,' and were soon at open strife with nearly the 
whole of our press, both the ' Edinburgh ' and the ' Quarterly ' 
condescending to bestow on us contemptuous, but very angry 
articles, in which they were joined by weeklies and dailies 



1'homas Hughes, 



innumerable. But we were young, saucy, and so thoroughly 
convinced we were right that 'we cared, shall I say, not a 
d — n for their damning.' 

" Most of my friends looked very serious, and prophesied 
that my prospects at the Bar would be ruined by my crotchets, 
and indeed I was dreadfully afraid of this myself. But the 
state of things in England was so serious, and I was so thor- 
oughly convinced of the necessity of work in this direction, 
that I couldn't give it up. No doubt I lost some business by 
it, but other business came, as I was wonderfully punctual at 
Chambers and soon got to be friends with my few clients, 
who even got to pardon, w T ith a shrug of the shoulders, the 
queer folk they often found there. And queer no doubt they 
were for a Chancery hamster's chambers, as emissaries from 
the tailors', shoemakers', printers', and builders' Associations 
(we *had a dozen of them going by this time) were often in 
and out about their rules and accounts and squabbles. I 
only remember one instance in which I really suffered. A 
clear old gentleman, a family friend of ours, had managed 
with much difficulty to persuade his solicitor to give me some 
business. That most respectable of men, head of a firm 
which could have made any young barrister's fortune, arrived 
one afternoon at my chambers with a brief, and was asked 
by my clerk to sit down for a moment till I was disengaged. 
This he did, graciously enough, though no doubt with the 
thought ' how little I could know my business to keep him 
waiting even for a moment,' when my door opened, and a 
full-blown black person (lately from the West Indies in quest 
of advice and aid for the freedmen there) walked out. This 
was too much for my intending client, who hurried away, 
saying he would call again, but I never saw his brief or 
him. 

" So things went on for some years during which I man- 
aged to maintain my growing family without dropping my 
work for the Associations. We had migrated to Wimbledon, 



Thomas Hughes. 



for health's sake, where we built, a house side by side with one 
of the other Promoters, which had one large room common 
to both houses, the subject of much chaff and fun to our 
visitors and acquaintance. Our garden was also in common, 
and both arrangements, I think, answered well. 

" About this time Maurice became convinced that if Asso- 
ciations of working people were to succeed, the men must be 
better educated in the highest sense. So he set to work to 
establish the Workingmen's College, of which he was the first 
and I am the present Principal. It is a very noteworthy institu- 
tion, at which, by the way, Emerson and Goldwin Smith, be- 
sides Stanley, Kingsley, Huxley, and other eminent English- 
men, have delivered opening addresses, at the beginning of 
the academical year, in October. 

" I found it at first very hard to discover my mission at the 
college. I tried lectures on the law of combination .and 
association, but they did not draw, and all the other classes 
for which I was competent, were filled by much better 
teachers from amongst our number. So, noting how badly 
set up the men were with round shoulders, and slouching 
gait, and how much they needed some strong exercise to 
supple them, I started a boxing class, and had some horizon- 
tal and parallel bars put up in the back-yard. These proved 
a great success, and at last it became clear to me, that all my 
Oxford time spent on such matters had not been thrown 
away. In connection with the boxing and gymnastic classes, 
we started social gatherings for talk and songs, over a cup of 
tea, which also were wonderfully successful. I remember 
Hawthorne coming to one of them ; brought by his friend, H. 
Bright, of Liverpool, and quite losing his shyness and reserve 
for the evening. 

" By this Time we had a boy of eight, and, thinking over 
what I should like to say to him before he went to school, I took 
to writing a story, as the easiest way of bringing out what I 
wanted. It was done mainly in the long vacation of 1856, 



Thomas Hughes. xix. 

but wasn't published till early in the next year, and made 
such a hit that the publishers soon betrayed the secret, and I 
became famous! 

" Whereupon arose again the professional bugbear, now set 
at rest for years. I had managed to get over and live down 
Christian Socialism, but who on earth would bring business 
to a successful author ! I considered whether I shouldn't 
throw over Lincoln's Inn and take to writing, but decided 
that the law was best for me, and determined to stop writing. 
This good resolution held for two years, when the Berkshire 
festival of scouring the White Horse, (an old Danish or 
Saxon, certainly Pagan figure, still left on our chalk-hills,) 
came round, and my old country friends made such a point of 
having an account of it from me that I gave in and wrote my 
book No. 2. 

"By this time my clients had become case-hardened, and find- 
ing no particular ill effects from my previous escapades, I gave 
in in a weak moment to a tempting offer of Macmillan's, and 
wrote ' Tom Brown at Oxford,' for his magazine. More- 
over. I had now made a plunge into public life, and was one 
of the leaders of a semi-political party. This is how it came 
about : There had been roused in me lively sympathies with 
the Abolitionists, and I had followed eagerly the progress of 
events through the Fugitive Slave, and Free Soil agitations. 
There was no warmer sympathizer with Garrison and John 
Brown and Levi Coffin, in England ; so when the Lincoln 
election came, and South Carolina led off the seceding states 
with jubilant applause of society in England, I went at once 
fiercely into the other camp. You may judge of the difficulty 
of getting our public men of note to take active sides with the 
North (tho' many of them didn't conceal their sympathy, 
and were ready to speak in Parliament, and write,) by the 
fact that I was about the most prominent speaker at the first 
great public meeting, which was held in London. This proved 
to be such an extraordinary success, that there was no further 



xx. Thomas HitgJies. 



effort on the part of the jingoes (that name hadn't yet been 
invented, but it was precisely the same party,) to demonstrate 
publicly in the metropolis. In other centres there was need 
of such work, and I went to Birmingham and Liverpool to 
speak and deliver lectures on the war and its causes and 
issues. It was supposed that there was to be a row at the 
latter place, which was the stronghold of the Rebels ; but all 
went off quietly. 

" It was mainly in consequence of these doings that I was 
asked by the working folk in South London to stand for Lam- 
beth in 1865. I did so, and was brought in triumphantly at 
the head of the Poll, and almost all the expense paid by sub- 
scription. From that time I gradually gave up legal business, 
and in 1868 took silk, as it is called, z. e., became a Queen's 
Counsel. In 1869 I wrote ' Alfred the Great ' for Macmillan's 
Sunday Series. I now made it my chief business to attend to 
Social- Political questions in Parliament; sat on two Trades 
Unions Commissions ; got amendments to the Industrial and 
Friendly Societies Acts through the House, but never took 
to party politics. 

"In 1870, as I hope you remember, I paid my delightful 
visit to America. 

"In 1872 I lost my dear eldest brother, and soon after 
wrote the memoir of him for my family. Maurice also 
died, and I became Principal of the Workingmen's Col- 
lege. 

" Before the next election (1874) the Co-operative question 
had come to the front. The success of the Upper Class 
London Supply Societies [copies of our working-class Asso- 
ciations in their main principle and features] had roused the 
tradesmen throughout the country. I was a candidate for 
Marylebone, and was fiercely opposed by the tradesmen, and 
supported by the professional and working classes. There 
were three Liberal candidates for only two seats, so it was 
agreed to refer it to the Attorney General to say who should 



Thomas Hughes. xxi. 



retire, and he decided that I had the worst chance of winning 
the seat (on one-sided and insufficient evidence, as my sup- 
porters maintained, and I think rightly). I therefore retired, 
and got no chance of entering that Parliament. For by this 
time the Trades Protection Society had been organized, to 
fight against neither small nor great, but only against those 
accursed revolutionists who had supported the Co-operative 
movement, and refused to flinch from it. 

" So it happened that I was again thrown out at the elec- 
tion this year. I had consented, on the unanimous and unso- 
licited request of the Liberal party in Salisbury, to stand 
there, and all went well till just before the election, when the 
Trades Protective people permitted the party organization to 
throw me over. I doubt if I shall ever return to the House, 
as my views on the Church question make me an almost 
hopeless candidate in the North of England, and my support 
of Co-operation a perfectly hopeless one at present in the 
South. I care, however, very little about it, having plenty to 
do outside in keeping irons hot, especially that most interest- 
ing of all my irons, the Tennessee settlement, which I hope 
to keep very hot indeed, and look upon as about the most 
hopeful of the many New Jerusalems which have attracted me 
during my pilgrimage. I am off to open Chapter II. of that 
Romance [Chapter I., the getting the titles clear, buy- 
ing the land, &c, having taken some two years,] on the 
1 2th of next month, and I can't tell you how much my heart 
is in it. 

" And so end my confessions. The only other points of 
interest, omitted above, are the publication of the ' Old 
Church,' in 1877, when the disestablishment movement 
began to get serious, and ' The Manliness of Christ,' this 
Spring, (1880), which latter has been already republished on 
your side in four different forms ; and lastly, my share 
in the Volunteer movement, which I joined at its start in 
1859. The Workingmen's College raised a corps of two 



xxii. Thomas Hughes. 

companies at once, of which, after serving for a few weeks as 
private, I was made Captain. It soon swelled into a regi- 
ment, the 19th Middlesex, of which I became Colonel, and 
served in it twelve years." 



TRUE MANLINESS 



THE conscience of every man recognizes courage 
as the foundation of true manliness, and manli- 
ness as the perfection of human character, and if 
Christianity runs counter to conscience in this matter, 
or indeed in any other, Christianity will go to the wall. 
But does it ? On the contrary, is not perfection of 
character — " Be ye perfect as your Father in heaven is 
perfect," perfection to be reached by moral effort in the 
faithful following of our Lord's life on earth — the 
final aim which the Christian religion sets before indi- 
vidual men, and constant contact and conflict with evil 
of all kinds the necessary condition of that moral effort, 

13 



i 4 TRUE MANLINESS. 

and the means adopted by our Master in the world in 
which we live, and for which he died ? In that strife, 
then, the first requisite is courage or manfulness, gained 
through conflict with evil — for without such conflict 
there can be no perfection of character, the end for 
which Christ says we were sent into this world. 



II. 

" Manliness and manfulness " are synonymous, but 
they embrace more than we ordinarily mean by the 
word " courage ; " for instance, tenderness and thought- 
fulness for others. They include that courage which 
lies at the root of all manliness, but is, in fact, only its 
lowest or rudest form. Indeed, we must admit that it 
is not exclusively a human quality at all, but one which 
we share with other animals, and which some of them 
— for instance the bulldog and weasel — exhibit with a 
certainty and a thoroughness, which is very rare amongst 
mankind. 

In what, then, does courage, in this ordinary sense 
of the word, consist ? First, in persistency, or the 
determination to have one's own way, coupled with con- 
tempt for safety and ease, and readiness to risk pain or 
death in getting one's own way. This is, let us readily 
admit, a valuable, even a noble quality, -but an animal 
quality rather than a human or manly one. Proficiency 



COURAGE. 15 

in athletic games is not necessarily a test even of animal 
courage, but only of muscular power and physical 
training. Even in those games which, to some extent, 
do afford a test of the persistency, and contempt for 
discomfort or pain, which constitute animal courage — 
such as rowing, boxing, and wrestling — it is of ne- 
cessity a most unsatisfactory one. For instance, 
Nelson — as courageous an Englishman as ever lived, 
who attacked a Polar bear with a handspike when he 
was a boy of fourteen, and told his captain, when he 
was scolded for it, that he did not know Mr. Fear — 
with his slight frame and weak constitution, could 
never have won a boat-race, and in a match would have 
been hopelessly astern of any one of the crew of his 
own banre ; and the highest courage which ever ani- 
mated a human body would not enable the owner of it, 
if he were himself untrained, to stand for five minutes 
against a trained wrestler or boxer. 

Athleticism is a good thing if kept in its place, but 
it has come to be very much over-praised and over- 
valued amongst us. 

True manliness is as likely to be found in a weak as 
in a strong body- Other things being equal, we may 
perhaps admit (though I should hesitate to do so) that 
a man with a highly-trained and developed body will be 
more courageous than a weak man. But we must take 
this caution with us, that a great athlete may be a brute 
or a coward, while a truly manly man can be neither. 



16 TRUE MANLINESS. 

III. 

Let us take a few well-known instances of cour- 
ageous deeds and examine them ; because, if we can find 
out any common quality in them we shall have lighted 
on something which is of the essence of, or inseparable 
from, that manliness which includes courage — that 
manliness of which we are in search. 

I will take two or three at hazard from a book in 
which they abound, and which was a great favorite some 
years ago, as I hope it is still, I mean Napier's Peninsu- 
lar War At the end of the storming of Badajos, after 
speaking of the officers, Napier goes on : " Who shall 
describe the springing valor of that Portuguese gren- 
adier who was killed the foremost man at Santa Maria ? 
or the martial fury of that desperate rifleman, who, 
in his resolution to win, thrust himself beneath the 
chained sword-blades, and then suffered the enemy to 
dash his head in pieces with the end of their muskets." 

Again, at the Coa : " A north-of-Ireland man, named 
Stewart, but jocularly called ' the boy,' because of his 
youth, nineteen, and of his gigantic stature and strength, 
who had fought bravely and displayed great intelligence 
beyond the river, was one of the last men who came 
down to the bridge, but he would not pass. Turning 
round he regarded the French with a grim look, and 
spoke aloud as follows, ' So this is the end of our brag. 
This is our first battle, and we retreat ! The boy 



COURAGE. 17 

Stewart will not live to hear that said.' Then stridin 



b 



forward in his giant might he fell furiously on the 
nearest enemies with the bayonet, refused the quarter 
they seemed desirous of granting, and died fighting in 
the midst of them." 

" Still more touching, more noble, more heroic, was 
the death of Sergeant Robert McQuade. During 
McLeod's rush, this man, also from the north of Ireland, 
saw two men level their muskets on rests against a 
high gap in a bank, awaiting the uprise of an enemy. 
The present Adjutant-general Brown, then a lad of six- 
teen, attempted to ascend at the fatal spot. McQuade, 
himself only twenty-four years of age, pulled him back, 
saying in a calm, decided tone, ' You are too young, 
sir, to be killed,' and then offering his own person to 
the fire, fell dead pierced with both balls." And, speak- 
ing of the British soldier generally, he says in his pre- 
face, "What they were their successors now are. 
Witness the wreck of the Birkenhead, where four hun- 
dred men, at the call of their heroic officers, Captains 
Wright and Girardot, calmly and without a murmur 
accepted death in a horrible form rather than endanger 
the women and children saved in the boats. The rec- 
ords of the world furnish no parallel to this self- 
devotion." 

Let us add to these two very recent examples : the 
poor colliers who worked day and night at Bont-y- 
pridd with their lives in their hands, to rescue their 



18 TRUE MANLINESS. 

buried comrades ; and the gambler in St. Louis who 
went straight from the gaming-table into the fire, to the 
rescue of women and children, and died of the hurts 
after his third return from the flames. 

Looking, then, at these several cases, we find in each 
that resolution in the actors to have their way, contempt 
for ease, and readiness to risk pain or death,, which we 
noted as the special characteristics of animal courage, 
which we share with the bulldog and weasel. 

So far all of them are alike. Can we get any 
further ? Not much, if we take the case of the rifleman 
who thrust his head under the sword-blades and allowed 
his brains to be knocked out sooner than draw it back, 
or that of " the boy Stewart." These are intense asser- 
tions of individual will and force — avowals of the rough 
hard-handed man that he has that in him which enables 
him to defy pain and danger and death — this and little 
or nothing more ; and no doubt a very valuable and 
admirable thing as it stands. ■ 

But we feel, I think, at once, that there is something 
more in the act of Sergeant McQuade, and of the 
miners in Pont-y-pridd — something higher and more 
admirable. And it is not a mere question of degree, 
of more or less, in the quality of animal courage. The 
rifleman and " the boy Stewart " were each of them 
persistent to death, and no man can be more. The 
acts were, then, equally courageous, so far as persist- 
ency and scorn of danger and death are concerned. 



COURAGE. 19 

We must look elsewhere for the difference, for that 
which touches us more deeply in the case of Sergeant 
McQuade than in that of " the boy Stewart," and can 
only find it in the motive. At least, it seems to me 
that the worth of the last lies mainly in the sublimity of 
self-assertion, of the other in the sublimity of self-sacri- 
fice. 

And this holds good again in the case of the Birken- 
Jiead. Captain Wright gave the word for the men to fall 
in on deck by companies, knowing that the sea below them 
was full of sharks, and that the ship could not possibly 
float till the boats came back ; and the men fell in, 
knowing this also, and stood at attention without utter- 
ing a word, till she heeled over and went down under 
them. And Napier, with all his delight in physical 
force and prowess, and his intense appreciation of the 
qualities which shine most brightly in the fiery action of 
battle, gives the palm to these when he writes, " The 
records of the world furnish no parallel to this self- 
devotion." He was no mean judge in such a case ; and, 
if he is right, as I think he is, do we not get another 
side-light on our inquiry, and find that the highest tem- 
per of physical courage is not to be found, or perfected, 
in action but in repose. All physical effort relieves 
the strain, and makes it easier to persist unto death 
under the stimulus and excitement of the shock of 
battle, or of violent exertion of any kind, than when 
the effort has to be made with grounded arms. In 



2o TRUE MANLINESS. 

other words, may we not say that in the face of danger 
self-restraint is after all the highest form of self-asser- 
tion, and a characteristic of manliness as distinguished 
from courage. 



IV. 

The courage which is tested in times of terror, on 
the battle-field, in the sinking ship, the poisoned mine, 
the blazing house, presents but one small side of a 
great subject. Such testing times come to few, and to 
these not often in their lives. But on the other hand, 
the daily life of every one of us teems with occasions 
which will try the temper of our courage as searchingly, 
though not as terribly, as battle-field or fire or wreck. 
For we are born into a state of war; with falsehood 
and disease, and wrong and misery in a thousand 
forms lying all around us, and the voice within calling 
on us to take our stand as men in the eternal battle 
against these. 

And in this life-long fight, to be waged by every one 
of us single-handed against a host of foes, the last 
requisite for a good fight, the last proof and test of our 
courage and manfulness, must be loyalty to tiuth — the 
most rare and difficult of all human qualities. For 
such loyalty, as it grows in perfection, asks ever more 
and more of us, and sets before us a standard of manli- 
ness always rising higher and higher. 



COURAGE. 21 

And this is the great lesson which we shall learn 
from Christ's life, the more earnestly and faithfully we 
study it. " For this end was I born, and for this cause 
came I into the world, to bear witness to the truth." To 
bear this witness against avowed and open enemies is 
comparatively easy ; but, to bear it against those we 
love ; against those whose judgment and opinions we 
respect, in defense or furtherance of that which ap- 
proves itself as true to our own inmost conscience, this 
is the last and abiding test of courage and of manli- 
ness. 



How natural, nay, how inevitable it is, that we should 
fall into the habit of appreciating and judging things 
mainly by the standards in common use amongst those 
we respect and love. But these very standards are apt 
to break down with us when we are brought face to face 
with some question which takes us ever so little out of 
ourselves and our usual moods. At such times we are 
driven to admit in our hearts that we, and those we re- 
spect and love, have been looking at and judging things, 
not truthfully, and therefore not courageously and man- 
fully, but conventionally. And then comes one of the 
most searching of all trials of courage and manliness, 
when a man or woman is called to stand by what ap- 
proves itself to their consciences as true, and to protest 



22 TRUE MANLINESS. 

for it through evil report and good report, against all 
discouragement and opposition from those they love or 
respect. The sense of antagonism instead of rest, of 
distrust and alienation instead of approval and sym- 
pathy, which such times bring, is a test which tries the 
very heart and reins, and it is one which meets us at all 
ages, and in all conditions of life. Emerson's hero is 
the man who, " taking both reputation and life in his 
hand, will with perfect urbanity dare the gibbet and the 
mob, by the resolute truth of his speech and rectitude of 
his behavior." 



VI. 



After all, what would life be without fighting, I should 
like to know ? From the cradle to the grave, fighting, 
rightly understood, is the business, the real, highest, 
honestest business of every son of man. Every one who 
is worth his salt has his enemies, who must be beaten, 
be they evil thoughts and habits in himself, or spiritual 
wickednesses in high places, or Russians, or border- 
ruffians. 

It is no good for Quakers, or any other body of men 
to uplift their voices against fighting. Human nature 
is too strong for them, and they don't follow their own 
precepts. Every soul of them is doing his own piece of 
fighting, somehow and somewhere. The world might 
be a better world without fighting, for anything I know, 



COURAGE. 2 3 

but it wouldn't be our world ; and therefore I am dead 
against crying peace, when there is no peace, and isn't 
meant to be. I am as sorry as any man to see folks 
fighting the wrong people and the wrong things, but I'd 
a deal sooner see them doing that, than that they should 
have no fight in them. 

VII. 

You can't alter society, or hinder people in general 
from being helpless and vulgar — from letting them- 
selves fall into slavery to the things about them if they 
are rich, or from aping the habits and vices of the rich 
if they are poor. But you may live simple, manly lives 
yourselves, speaking your own thought, paying your own 
way. and doing your own work, whatever that may be. 
You will remain gentlemen so long as you follow these 
rules, if you have to sweep a crossing for your livelihood. 
You will not remain gentlemen in anything but the 
name, if you depart from them, though you may be set 
to govern a kingdom. 

VIII. 

In testing manliness as distinguished from courage, 
we shall have to reckon sooner or later with the idea 
of duty. Nelson's column stands in the most con- 
spicuous site in all London, and stands theie with all 



24 TRUE MANLINESS. 

men's approval, not because of his daring courage. 
Lord Peterborough, in a former generation, Lord Dun- 
donald in the one which succeeded, were at least as 
eminent for reckless and successful daring. But it is 
because the idea of devotion to duty is inseparably con- 
nected with Nelson's name in the minds of Englishmen, 
that he has been lifted high above all his compeers in 
England's capital. 

IX. 

In the throes of one of the terrible revolutions of the 
worst days of imperial Rome — when probably the 
crudest mob and most licentious soldiery of all time 
were raging round the palace of the Caesars, and the 
chances of an hour would decide whether Galba or Otho 
should rule the world, the alternative being a violent 
death — an officer of the guard, one Julius Atticus, 
rushed into Galba's presence with a bloody sword, 
boasting that he had slain his rival, Otho. "My com- 
rade, by whose order ? " was his only greeting from the 
old Pagan chief. And the story has come down 
through eighteen centuries, in the terse, strong sentences 
of the great historian, Tacitus. 

Comrade, who ordered thee ? whose will art thou 
doing? It is the question which has to be asked of 
every fighting man, in whatever part of the great battle- 
field he comes to the front, and determines the manli- 



COURAGE. 25 

ness of soldier, statesman, parson, of every strong man, 
and suffering woman. 

" Three roots bear up Dominion ; knowledge, will, 
These two are strong ; but stronger still the third, 

Obedience : 'tis the great tap-root, which still 
Knit round the rock of Duty, is not stirred, 

Though storm and tempest spend their utmost skill." 

I think that the more thoroughly we sift and search out 
this question the more surely we shall come to this as 
the conclusion of the whole matter. Tenacity of will, 
or wilfulness, lies at the root of all courage, but courage 
can only rise into true manliness when the will is sur- 
rendered ; and the more absolute the surrender of the 
will the more perfect will be the temper of our courage 
and the strength of our manliness. 

" Strong Son of God, immortal Love," 
the laureate has pleaded, in the moment of his highest 
inspiration. 

" Our wills are ours to make them thine." 

And that strong Son of God to whom this cry has 
gone up in our day, and in all days, has left us the secret 
of his strength in the words, " I am come to do the will 
of my Father and your Father." 



i 



Haste and distrust are the sure signs of weakness, if 



26 TRUE MANLINESS. 

not of cowardice. Just in so far as they prevail in any 
life, even in the most heroic, the man fails, and his work 
will have to be done over again. In Christ's life there 
is not the slightest trace of such weakness or cowardice. 
From all that we are told, and from all that we can 
infer, he made no haste, and gave way to no doubt, 
waiting for God's mind, and patiently preparing himself 
for whatever his work might be. And so his work from 
the first was perfect, and through his whole public life 
he never faltered or wavered, never had to withdraw or 
modify a word once spoken. And thus he stands, and 
will stand to the end of time, the true, model of the 
courage and manliness of boyhood and youth and early 
manhood 

XI. 

The man whose yea is yea and his nay nay, is, we all 
confess, the most courageous, whether or no he may be 
the most successful in daily life. And he who gave the 
precept has left us the most perfect example of how to 
live up to it. 



XII. 

It is his action when the clanger comes, not when he 
is in solitary preparation for it, which marks the man of 
courage. 



COURAGE. 27 



XIII. 



In all the world's annals there is nothing which ap- 
proaches, in the sublimity of its courage, that last 
conversation between our Saviour and the Roman proc- 
urator, before Pilate led him forth for the last time and 
pleaded scornfully with his nation for the life of their 
king. There must be no flaw or spot on Christ's cour- 
age, any more than on his wisdom and tenderness and 
sympathy. And the more unflinchingly we apply the 
test the more clear and sure will the response come 
back to us. 

XIV. 

Quit yourself like men ; speak up, and strike out if 
necessary, for whatsoever is true and manly, and lovely, 
and of good report ; never try to be popular, but only to 
do your duty and help others to do theirs, and, wherever 
you are placed, you may leave the tone of feeling higher 
than you found it, and so be doing good which no living 
soul can measure to generations yet unborn. 



XV. 

We listened to Dr. Arnold, as all boys in their better 
moods will listen (aye, and men too for the matter of 



28 TRUE MANLINESS. 

that,) to a man whom we felt to be, with all his heart and 
soul and strength, striving against whatever was mean 
and unmanly and unrighteous in our little world. It 
was not the cold, clear voice of one giving advice and 
warning from serene heights to those who w 7 ere strug- 
gling and sinning below, but the warm, living voice of 
one who w r as fighting for us by our sides, and calling on 
us to help him and ourselves and one another. And 
so, wearily and little by little, but surely and steadily on 
the whole, was brought home to the young boy the 
meaning of his life ; that it was no fool's or sluggard's 
paradise into which he had wandered by chance, but a 
battle-field ordained from of old, where there are no 
spectators, but the youngest must take his side, and the 
stakes are life and death. And he who roused this 
consciousness in them, showed them at the same time, 
by every word he spoke in the pulpit, and by his whole 
daily life, how that battle was to be fought; and stood 
there before them their fellow-soldier and the captain of 
their band. The true sort of a captain, too, for a boys' 
army, one who had no misgivings and gave no uncertain 
word of command, and, let who would yield or make 
truce, would fight the fight out (so every boy felt) to the 
last gasp and the last drop of blood. Other sides of his 
character might take hold of and influence boys here 
and there, but it was this thoroughness and undaunted 
courage which more than anything else won his way to 
the hearts of the great mass of those on whom he left 



COURAGE. 29 

his mark, and made them believe first in him, and then 
in his Master. 

XVI. 

To stand by what our conscience witnesses for as truth, 
through evil and good report, even against all oppo- 
sition of those we love, and of those whose judgment we 
look up to and should ordinarily prefer to follow ; to 
cut ourselves deliberately off from their love and sym- 
pathy and respect, is surely one of the most severe trials 
to which we can be put. A man has need to feel at 
such times that the Spirit of the Lord is upon him in 
some measure, as it was upon Christ when he rose in 
the synagogue of Nazareth and, selecting the passage of 
Isaiah which speaks most directly of the Messiah, 
claimed that title for himself, and told them that to-day 
this prophecy was fulfilled in him. 

The fierce, hard, Jewish spirit is at once roused to 
fury. They would kill him then and there, and so 
settle his claims once for all. He passes through them, 
and away from the quiet home where he had been 
brought up — alone, it would seem, so far as man could 
make him so, and homeless for the remainder of his 
life. Yet not alone, for his Father is with him ; nor 
homeless for he has the only home of which man can be 
sure, the home of his own heart shared with the Spirit 
of God. 



3o TRUE MANLINESS. 



XVII. 



We have been told recently, by more than one 01 
those who profess to have weighed and measured 
Christianity and found it wanting, that religion must 
rest on reason, based on phenomena of this visible, 
tangible world in which we are living. 

Be it so. There is no need for a Christian to object. 
We can meet this challenge as well as any other. We 
need never be careful about choosing our own battle- 
field. Looking, then, at that world as we see it, labor- 
ing heavily along in our own time — as we hear of it 
through the records of the ages — I must repeat that 
there is no phenomenon in it comparable for a moment 
to that of Christ's life and work. The more we canvass 
and sift and weigh and balance the materials, the more 
clearly and grandly does his figure rise before us, as the 
true Head of humanity, the perfect Ideal, not only of 
wisdom and tenderness and love, but of courage also, 
because He was and is the simple Truth of God — the 
expression, at last, in flesh and blood of what He who 
created us means each one of our race to be. 



XVIII. 

" My father," said Hardy, " is an old commander in 
the royal navy. He was a second cousin of Nelson's 



COURAGE. 31 

Hardy, and that, I believe, was what led him into the 
navy, for he had no interest whatever of his own. It 
was a visit which Nelson's Hardy, then a young lieuten- 
ant, paid to his relative, my grandfather, which decided 
my father, he has told me ; but he always had a strong 
bent to sea, though he was a boy of very studious 
habits. 

" However, those were times when brave men who 
knew and loved their profession couldn't be overlooked, 
and my dear old father fought his way up step by step — 
not very fast, certainly, but still fast enough to keep him 
in heart about his chances in life. 

" He was made commander towards the end of the 
war, and got a ship, in which he sailed with a convoy of 
merchantmen from Bristol. It was the last voyage he 
ever made in active service ; but the Admiralty was so 
well satisfied with his conduct in it that they kept his 
ship in commission two years after peace was declared. 
And well they might be, for in the Spanish main he 
fought an action which lasted, on and off, for two days, 
with a French sloop-of-war, and a privateer, either of 
which ought to have been a match for him. But he had 
been with Vincent in the Arrow, and was not likely to 
think much of such small odds as that. At any rate, he 
beat them of, and not a prize could either of them make 
out of his convoy, though I believe his ship was never 
fit for anything afterwards, and was broken up as soon 
as she was out of commission. We have got her com- 



32 TRUE MANLINESS. 

passes, and the old flag which flew at the peak through 
the whole voyage, at home now. It was my father's own 
flag, and his fancy to have it always flying. More than 
half the men were killed or badly hit — the dear old 
father among the rest. A ball took off part of his knee- 
cap, and he had to fight the last six hours of the action 
sitting in a chair on the quarter-deck ; but he says it 
made the men fight better than when he was among 
them, seeing him sitting there sucking oranges. 

" Well, he came home with a stiff leg. The Bristol 
merchants gave him the freedom of the city in a gold 
box, and a splendidly-mounted sword with an inscription 
on the blade, which hangs over the mantel-piece at 
home. When I first left home, I asked him to give me 
his old service-sword, which used to hang by the other, 
and he gave it me at once, though I was only a lad of 
seventeen, as he would give me his right eye, dear old 
father, which is the only one he has now ; the other he 
lost from a cutlass-wound in a boarding party. There 
it hangs, and those are his epaulettes in the tin case. 
They used to be under my pillow before I had a room 
of my own, and many a cowardly down-hearted fit have 
they helped me to pull through ; and many a mean act 
have they helped to keep me from doing. There they 
are always ; and the sight of them brings home the dear 
old man to me as nothing else does, hardly even his let- 
ters. I must be a great scoundrel to go very wrong 
with such a father. 



COURAGE. 33 

" Let's see — where was I ? Oh, yes ; I remember. 
Well, my father got his box and sword, and some very 
handsome letters from several great men. We have 
them all in a book at home, and I know them by heart. 
The ones he values most are from Collinwood, and his 
old captain, Vincent, and from his cousin, Nelson's 
Hardy, who didn't come off very well himself after the 
war. But my poor old father never got another ship. 
For some time he went up every year to London, and 
was always, he says, very kindly received by the people 
in power, and often dined with one and another Lord of 
the Admiralty who had been an old mess-mate. But 
he was longing for employment, and it used to prey on 
him while he was in his prime to feel year after year 
slipping away and he still without a ship. But why 
should I abuse people and think it hard, when he 
doesn't ? ' You see, Jack,' he said to me the last time 
I spoke to him about it, ' after all, I was a battered old 
hulk, lame and half-blind. So was Nelson, you'll say ; 
but every man isn't a Nelson, my boy. And though I 
might think I could con or fight a ship as well as ever, 
I can't say other folk who didn't know me were wrong 
for not agreeing with me. Would you, now, Jack, ap- 
point a lame and blind man to command your ship, if 
you had one ? ' But he left off applying for work soon 
after he was fifty (I just remember the time), for he 
began to doubt then whether he was quite so fit to com- 
mand a small vessel as a younger man ; and though he 



34 TRUE MANLINESS. 

had a much better chance after that of getting a ship (for 
William IV. came to the throne, who knew all about 
him), he never went near the Admiralty again. ' God 
forbid,' he said, ' that his Majesty should take me if 
there's a better man to be had.' " 



XIX. 

The object of wrestling and of all other athletic 
sports is to strengthen mens' bodies, and to teach them 
to use their strength readily, to keep their tempers, to 
endure fatigue and pain. These are all noble ends. 
God gives us few more valuable gifts than strength of 
body, and courage, and endurance — to laboring men 
they are beyond all price. We ought to cultivate them 
in all right ways for they are given us to protect the 
weak, to subdue the earth, to fight for our homes and 
country if neccessary. 



XX. 

To you young men, I say, as Solomon said, rejoice in 
your youth ; rejoice in your strength of body, and 
elasticity of spirits and the courage which follows from 
these ; but remember, that for these gifts you will be 
judged — not condemned, mind, but judged. You will 
have to show before a judge who knoweth your inmost 



STRENGTH. 35 

hearts, that you have used these his great gifts well ; 
that you have been pure and manly, and true. 



XXI. 

At last in my dream, a mist came over the Hill, and 
all the figures got fainter and fainter, and seemed to be 
fading away. But as they faded, I could see one great 
figure coming out clearer through the mist, which I had 
never noticed before. It was like a grand old man, 
with white hair and mighty limbs, who looked as old 
as the hill itself, but yet as if he were as young now as 
he ever had been • and at his feet were a pickaxe and 
spade, and at his side a scythe. But great and solemn 
as it looked, I felt that the figure was not a man, and I 
was angry with it. Why should it come in with its 
great pitiful eyes and smile ? Why were my brothers 
and sisters, the men and women, to fade away before it ? 

" The labor that a man doeth under the sun, it is all 
vanity. Prince and peasant, the wise man and the fool 
they all come to me at last and I garner them away, 
and their place knows them no more ! " So the figure 
seemed to say to itself, and I felt melancholy as I 
watched it sitting there at rest, playing with the fading 
figures. 

At last it placed one of the little figures on its knee, 
half in mockery, as it seemed to me, and half in sor- 



36 TRUE MANLINESS. 

row. But then all changed ; and the great figure began 
to fade, and the small man came out clearer and clearer. 
And he took no heed of his great neighbor, but rested 
there where he was placed ; and his face was quiet, and 
full of life as he gazed steadily and earnestly through 
the mist. And the other figures came flitting by again 
and chanted as they passed, " The work of one true 
man is greater than all thy work. Thou hast nought 
but a seeming power over it, or over him. Every true 
man is greater than thee. Every true man shall con- 
quer more than thee ; for he shall triumph over death, 
and hell, and thee, oh, Time ! " 



XXII. 

The strain and burden of a great message of deliver- 
ance to men has again and again found the weak places 
in the faith and courage of the most devoted and 
heroic of those to whom it has been entrusted. Moses 
pleads under its pressure that another may be sent in 
his place, asking despairingly, "Why hast thou sent 
me ? " Elijah prays for death. Mohammed passes years 
of despondency and hesitation under the sneers of 
those who scoff, " There goeth the son of Abdallah, 
who hath his converse with God ! " Such shrinkings 
and doubtings enlist our sympathy, make us feel the tie 
of a common humanity which binds us to such men. 



STRENGTH. 37 

But no one, I suppose, will maintain that perfect manli- 
ness would not suppress, at any rate, the open expres- 
sion of any such feelings. The man who has to lead a 
great revolution should keep all misgivings to himself, 
and the weight of them so kept must often prove the 
sorest part of his burden. 

XXIII. 

We have most of us, at one time or another of our 
lives, passed through trying ordeals, the memory of 
which we can by no means dwell on with pleasure. 
Times they were of blinding and driving storm, and 
howling winds, out of which voices as of evil spirits 
spoke close in our ears — tauntingly, temptingly, whis- 
pering to the mischievous wild beast which lurks in the 
bottom of all our hearts — now, " Rouse up ! art thou 
a man and darest not do this thing ; " now, " Rise, kill 
and eat — it is thine, wilt thou not take it ? Shall the 
flimsy scruples of this teacher, or the sanctified cant of 
that, bar thy way and balk thee of thine own ? Thou 
hast strength to have them — to brave all things in 
earth or heaven, or hell ; put out thy strength, and be a 
man ! " 

Then did not the wild beast within us shake itself, 
and feel its power, sweeping away all the " Thou shalt 
nots," which the Law wrote up before us in letters of 
fire, with the " I will " of hardy, godless, self-assertion ? 



38 TRUE MANLINESS. 

And all the while, which alone made the storm really- 
dreadful to us, was there not the still small voice, 
never to be altogether silenced by the roarings of the 
tempest of passion, by the evil voices, by our own 
violent attempts to stifle it ; — the still small voice 
appealing to the man, the true man, within us, which is 
made in the image of God, calling on him to assert his 
dominion over the wild beast — to obey, and conquer, 
and live. Aye ! and though we may have followed 
other voices, have we not, while following them, con- 
fessed in our hearts that all true strength, and noble- 
ness, and manliness was to be found in the other path. 
Do I say that most of us have had to tread this path 
and fight this battle ? Surely I might have said all of 
us ; all, at least, who have passed the bright days of 
their boyhood. The clear and keen intellect no less 
than the dull and heavy ; the weak, the cold, the ner- 
vous, no less than the strong and passionate of body. 
The arms and the field have been divers — can have 
been the same, I suppose, to no two men, but the battle 
must have been the same to all. One here and there may 
have had a foretaste of it as a boy ; but it is the young 
man's battle, and not the boy's, thank God for it ! 
That most hateful and fearful of all relatives, call it by 
what name we will — self, the natural man, the old 
Adam — must have risen up before each of us in early 
manhood, if not sooner, challenging the true man within 



STRENGTH. 39 

us, to which the Spirit of God is speaking, to a struggle 
for life or death. 

Gird yourself, then, for the fight, my young brother, 
and take up the pledge which was made for you when 
you were a helpless child. This world, and all others, 
time and eternity, for you hang upon the issue. This 
enemy must be met and vanquished — not finally, for 
no man while on earth, I suppose, can say that he is 
slain ; but, when once known and recognized, met and 
vanquished he must be, by God's help, in this and that 
encounter, before you can be truly called a man ; be- 
fore you can really enjoy any one even of this world's 
good things. 

XXIV. 

In the course of my inquiries on the subject of mus- 
cular Christians, their works and ways, a fact has forced 
itself on my attention, which, for the sake of ingenious 
youth, ought not to be passed over. I find then, that, 
side by side with these muscular Christians, and appar- 
ently claiming some sort of connection with them (the 
same concern, as the pirates of trade-marks say) have 
risen up another set of persons, against whom I desire 
to caution my readers. I must call the persons in ques- 
tion " musclemen," as distinguished from muscular 
Christians ; the only point in common between the two 
being that both hold it to be a good thing to have strong 



4o TRUE MANLINESS. 

and well-exercised bodies, ready to be put at the shortest 
notice to any work of which bodies are capable, and to 
do it well. Here all likeness ends; for the "muscle- 
man " seems to have no belief whatever as to the pur- 
poses for which his body has been given him, except 
some hazy idea that it is to go up and down the world 
with him, belaboring men and captivating women for his 
benefit or pleasure, at once the servant and fomenter of 
those fierce and brutal passions which he seems to 
think it a necessity, and rather a fine thing than other- 
wise, to indulge and obey. Whereas, so far as I know, 
the least of the muscular Christians has hold of the old 
chivalrous and Christian belief, that a man's body is 
given him to be trained and brought into subjection, 
and then used for the protection of the weak, the ad- 
vancement of all righteous causes, and the subduing 
of the earth which God has given to the children of men. 
He does not hold that mere strength or activity are in 
themselves worthy of any respect or worship, or that one 
man is a bit better than another because he can knock 
him down, or carry a bigger sack of potatoes than he. 
For mere power, whether of body or intellect, he has (I 
hope and believe) no reverence whatever, though, 
cceteris paribus, he would probably himself, as a matter 
of taste prefer the man who can lift a hundred-weight 
round his head with his little finger to the man who can 
construct a string of perfect Sorites. 



HUMILITY. 41 

XXV. 

As a rule, the more thoroughly disciplined and fit a 
man may be for any really great work, the more conscious 
will he be of his own unfitness for it, the more distrustful 
of himself, the more anxious not to thrust himself forward. 
It is only the zeal of the half-instructed when the hour 
of a great deliverance has come at last — of those who 
have had a glimpse of the glory of the goal, but have 
never known or counted the perils of the path which 
leads to it — which is ready with the prompt response, 
" Yes — we can drink of the cup, we can be baptized 
with the baptism." 

XXVI. 

How can we be ever on the watch for the evil which 
is so near us ? We cannot ; but one is with us, is in us, 
who can and will, if we will let him. 

Men found this out in the old time, and have felt it 
and known it ever since. Three thousand years ago 
this truth dawned upon the old Psalmist, and struck him 
with awe. He struggled with it ; he tried to escape from 
it, but in vain. "Whither shall I go," he says "from 
thy Spirit ? or whither shall I flee from thy presence ? 
If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there : if I make my 
bed in hell, behold thou art there. If I take the wings 
of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the 



42 TRUE MANLINESS. 

sea ; even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right 
hand shall hold me." 

Is any of us stronger or wiser than the Psalmist ? 
Is there any place for us to flee to, which was not open 
to him ? My brethren, had. we not better make up our 
minds to accept and acknowledge the truth, to which 
our own consciences bear witness, that not only in 
heaven, and in hell, and in the uttermost parts of 
sea and earth, He is present, but that in the inmost re- 
cesses of our own hearts there is no escape from his 
Spirit — that He is there also, sustaining us, pleading 
with us, punishing us. 

We know it by the regret we feel for time wasted and 
opportunities neglected • by the loathing coming back 
to us, time after time, for our every untrue, or mean 
thought, word, or deed ; by every longing after truth, 
and righteousness, and purity, which stirs our sluggish 
souls. By all these things, and in a thousand other 
ways, we feel it, we know it. 

Let us, then, own this and give ourselves up to his 
guidance. At first it will be hard work ; our will and 
spirits will be like a lump of ice in a man's hand, which 
yields but slowly to the warm pressure. But do not de- 
spair; throw yourselves on his guidance, and he will 
guide you, he will hide you under his wings, you shall 
be safe under his feathers, his faithfulness and truth 
shall be your shield and buckler. 

The ice will melt into water, and the water will lie 



POWER. 43 

there in the hollow of the hand, moving at the slightest 
motion, obeying every impulse which is given to it. 

My brethren, the Spirit of God which is in every one 
of us — the spirit of truth and love unchangeable — will 
take possession of our spirits, if we will but let him, and 
turn our whole lives into the lives of children of God, 
and joint-heirs of heaven with his Son. 

XXVII. 

" As the world was plastic and fluid in the hands of 
God, so it is ever to so much of his attributes as we 
bring to it," may be a startling saying of Mr. Emerson's, 
but is one which commends itself to our experience and 
reason, if we only consult them honestly. Let us take 
the most obvious examples of this law. Look at the re- 
lations of man to the brute Creation. One of us shall 
have no difficulty in making friends of beasts and birds, 
while another excites their dread and hate, so that even 
dogs will scarcely come near him. There as no need 
to go back to the traditions of the hermits in the The- 
baid, or St. Francis of Assisi, for instances of the former 
class. We all know the story of Cowper and his three 
hares, from his exquisite letters and poem, and most of 
you must have read, or heard of the terms on which 
Waterton lived with the birds and beasts in his York- 
shire home, and of Thoreau, unable to get rid of wild 
squirrels and birds who would come and live with him, 



44 TRUE MANLINESS. 

or from a boat, taking fish which lay quietly in his hand 
till he chose to put them back again into the stream. 
But I suppose there is scarcely one of us who has not 
himself seen such instances again and again, persons of 
whom the old words seemed literally true, " At destruc- 
tion and famine thou shalt laugh ; neither shaft thou 
be afraid of the beasts of the earth. For thou shalt be 
in league with the stones of the field, and the beasts of 
the field shall be at peace with thee." 

I remember myself several such ; a boy who was 
friends even with rats, stoats, and snakes, and generally 
had one or other of them in his pockets ; a groom upon 
whose shoulders the pigeons used to settle, and nestle 
against his cheeks, whenever he went out into the stable- 
yard or field. Is there any reasonable way of account- 
ing for this ? Only one, I think, which is, that those 
who have this power over, and attraction for, animals, 
have always felt toward them and treated them as their 
Maker intended — have unconsciously, perhaps, but 
still faithfully, followed God's mind in their dealings 
with his creatures, and so have stood in true relations 
to them all, and have found the beasts of the field at 
peace with them. 

In the same way the stones of the field are in league 
with the geologist, the trees and flowers with the 
botanist, the component parts of earth and air with the 
chemist, just in so far as each, consciously or uncon- 
sciously, follows God's methods with them — each part 



PO WER. 45 

of his creation yielding up its secrets and its treasures 
to the open mind of the humble and patient, who is also 
at bottom always the most courageous learner. 



XXVIII. 

What is true of each of us beyond all question — 
what every man who walks with open eyes and open 
heart knows to be true of himself — must be true also 
of Christ. And so, though we may reject the stories of 
the clay birds, which he modeled as a child, taking wing 
and bursting into song round him, (as on a par with St. 
Francis' address to his sisters, the swallows, at Alvia, or 
the flocks in the marshes of Venice, who thereupon kept 
silence from their twitterings and songs till his sermon 
was finished), we cannot doubt that in proportion as 
Christ was more perfectly in sympathy with God's 
creation than any mediceval saint, or modern naturalist, 
or man of science, he had more power than they with 
all created things from his earliest youth. Nor could it 
be otherwise with the hearts and wills of men. Over 
these we know that, from that time to this, he has exer- 
cised a supreme sway, infinitely more wonderful than 
that over birds and beasts, because of man's power of 
resistance to the will Christ came to teach and to do, 
which exists, so far as we can see, in no other part of 
creation. 



46 TRUE MANLINESS. 

I think, then, it is impossible to resist the conclusion 
that he must have had all these powers from his child- 
hood, that they must have been growing stronger from 
day to day, and he, at the same time, more and more 
conscious of possessing them, not to use on any impulse 
of curiosity or self-will, but only as the voice within 
prompted. And it seems the most convincing testimony 
to his perfect sonship, manifested in perfect obedience, 
that he should never have tested his powers during those 
thirty years as he did at once and with perfect confi- 
dence as soon as the call came. Had he clone so his 
ministry must have commenced sooner ; that is to say, 
before the method was matured by which he was to re- 
construct, and lift into a new atmosphere and on to a 
higher plane, the faith and life of his own nation and of 
the whole world. For it is impossible to suppose that 
the works which he did, and the words he spoke, at 
thirty — which at once threw all Galilee and Judea into 
a ferment of hope and joy and doubt and anger — 
should have passed unnoticed had they been wrought 
and spoken when he was twenty. Here, as in all else, 
he waited for God's mind : and so, when the time for 
action came, worked with the power of God. And this 
waiting and preparation must have been the supreme 
trial of his faith. The holding this position must have 
been, in those early years, the holding of the very centre 
of the citadel in man's soul, (as Bunyan so quaintly 
terms it), against which the assaults of the tempter must 



POWER. 47 

have been delivered again and again while the garrison 
was in training for the victorious march out into the 
open field of the great world, carrying forth the standard 
which shall never go back. 

And while it may be readily admitted that Christ 
wielded a dominion over all created things, as well as 
over man, which no other human being has ever ap- 
proached, it seems to me to be going quite beyond what 
can be proved, or even fairly assumed, to speak of his 
miracles as supernatural, in the sense that no man has 
ever done, or can ever do, the like. The evidence is 
surely all the other way, and seems rather to indicate 
that if we could only have lived up to the standard 
which we acknowledge in our inmost hearts to be the 
true one — could only have obeyed every motion and 
warning of the voice of God speaking in our hearts from 
the day when we first became conscious of and could 
hear it — if, in other words, our wills had from the first 
been disciplined, like the will of Christ, so as to be in 
perfect accord with the will of God — I see no reason 
to doubt that we, too, should have gained the power and 
the courage to show signs, or, if you please, to work 
miracles, as Christ and his Apostles worked them. 

XXIX. 

Christ's whole life on earth was the assertion and ex- 
ample of true manliness — the netting forth in living act 



48 TRUE MANLINESS. 

and word what man is meant to be, and how he should 
carry himself in this world of God's — one long cam- 
paign, in which " the temptation " stands out as the first 
great battle and victory. The story has depths in it 
which we can never fathom, but also clear, sharp lessons 
which he who runs may read, and no man can master 
too thoroughly. We must follow him reverently into 
the wilderness, where he flies from the crowds who are 
pressing to the Baptist, and who to-morrow will be 
thronging around him, if he goes back among them, 
after what the Baptist has said about him to-clay. 

Day after day in the wilderness the struggle goes on 
in his heart. He is faint from insufficient food in those 
solitudes, and with bodily weakness the doubts grow 
in strength and persistence, and the tempter is always 
at his side, soliciting him to end them once for all, by 
one act of self-assertion. All those questionings and 
misgivings as to his origin and mission which we have 
pictured to ourselves as haunting him ever since his 
first visit to Jerusalem, are now, as it were, focussed. 
There are mocking voices whispering again as of old, 
but more scornfully and keenly in his ear, " Are you 
really the Messiah, the Son of God, so long looked for ? 
What more proof have you to go upon than you have 
had for these many years, during which you have been 
living as a poor peasant in a Galilean village ? The 
word of this wild man of the wilderness ? He is your 
own cousin, and a powerful preacher no doubt, but a 



PO WER. 49 

wayward, wilful man, clad and fed like a madman, who 
has been nursing mad fancies from his boyhood, away 
from the holy city, the centre of national life and learn- 
ing. This sign of a descending dove, and a voice which 
no one has heard but yourself ? Such signs come to 
many — are never wanting when men are ready to de- 
ceive themselves — and each man's fancy gives them a 
different meaning. But the words, and the sign, and 
the voice, you say, only meet a conviction which has 
been growing these thirty years in your own heart and 
conscience ? Well, then, at least for the sake of others 
if not for your own sake, put this conviction to the 
proof, here, at once, and make sure yourself, before you 
go forth and deceive poor men, your brethren, to their 
ruin. You are famishing here in the wilderness. This, 
at least, cannot be what God intends for his Son, who is 
to redeem the world., Exercise some control over the 
meanest part of your Father's kingdom. Command 
these stones to become bread, and see whether they will 
obey you. Cast yourself down from this height. If you 
are what you think, your Father's angels will bear you 
up. Then, after they have borne you up, you may go 
on with some reasonable assurance that your claim is 
not a mere delusion, and that you will not be leading 
these poor men whom you call your brethren to misery 
and destruction." 

And when neither long fasting and weakness, or 
natural doubt, distrust, impatience, or the most subtle 



50 TRUE MANLINESS. 

suggestions of the tempter, can move his simple tiLst 
in his Father, or wring from him one act of self-asstr- 
tion, the enemy changes front and the assault comes 
from another quarter. " You maybe right," the voices 
seemed now to be saying ; " You may not be deceived, 
or dreaming, when you claim to be the Son of God, sent 
to redeem this fair world, which is now spread out be- 
fore you in all its glory. That may be your origin, and 
that your work. But, living as you have done till now 
in a remote corner of a despised province, you have no 
experience or knowledge of the methods or powers 
which sway men, and establish and maintain these 
kingdoms of the world, the glory of which you are be-" 
holding. These methods and powers have been in use 
in your Father's world, if it be his, ever since man has 
known good from evil. You have only to say the word, 
and you may use and control these methods and powers 
as you please. By their aid you may possibly ' see of 
the travail of your soul and be satisfied ; ' without them 
you will redeem nothing but perhaps a man here and 
there — without them you will postpone instead of 
hastening the coming of your Father's kingdom, to the 
sorrow and. ruin of many generations, and will die a 
foiled and lonely man, crushed by the very forces you 
have refused to use for your Father's service. If they 
were wholly evil, wholly unfit for the fulfillment of any 
purpose of his, would he have left them in command of 
his world till this day ? It is only through them that the 



POWER. 51 

world can be subdued. Your time is short, and you 
have already wasted much of it, standing shivering on 
the brink, and letting the years slip by in that cottage 
at Nazareth. The wisest of your ancestors acknowl- 
edged and used them, and spread His kingdom from the 
river to the Great Sea. Why should you reject them ? " 
This, very roughly and inadequately stated, is some 
shadow of the utmost part, or skirt as it were, of the 
trial-crisis, lasting forty days, through which Christ 
passed from his private to his public career. For forty 
days the struggle lasted before he could finally realize 
and accept his mission with all that it implied. At the 
end of that time he has fairly mastered and beaten down 
every doubt as to his call, every tempting suggestion to 
assert himself, or to accept or use any aid in establish- 
ing hi3 Father's kingdom which does not clearly bear 
his Father's stamp and seal on the face of it. In the 
strength of this victory he returns from the desert, to 
take up the burden which has been laid on him, and to 
set up God's kingdom in the world by the methods 
which he has learned of God himself — and by no 
other. 

XXX. 

The second period of our Lord's ministry is one, in 
the main, of joyful progress and triumph, in which the 
test of true manliness must be more subtle than when 



52 TRUE MANLINESS. 

the surroundings are hostile. It consists, I think, at 
such times, in the careful watchfulness not to give 
wrong impressions, not to mislead those who are touched 
by enthusiasm, conscious of new life, grateful to him 
who has kindled that life in them. 

It is then that the temptation to be all things to all 
men in a wrong sense — to adapt and accommodate 
teaching and life to a lower standard in order to main- 
tain a hold upon the masses of average men and women 
who have been moved by the words of lips touched by 
fire from the altar of God — •'lias generally proved too 
much for the best and strongest of the world's great re- 
formers. It is scarcely necessary to elaborate this point, 
which would, I think, be sorrowfully admitted by those 
who have studied most lovingly and carefully the lives 
of such men, for instance, as Savonarola or Wesley. If 
you will refer to a valuable work on the life of a greater 
than either of these, Mr. Bosworth's Smith's " Moham- 
med and Mohammedanism," you will find there perhaps 
the best illustration which I can give you of this sad 
experience. 

When Mohammed returns from Medina, sweeping at 
last all enemies out of his path, as the prophet of a new 
faith, and the leader of an awakened and repentant peo- 
ple, his biographer pauses to notice the lowering of the 
standard, both in his life and teaching. Power, he 
pleads, brings with it new temptations and new failures. 
The more thoroughly a man is carried away by his in- 



POWER. 53 

spiration, and convinced of the truth and goodness of 
his cause and his message, the more likely is he to for- 
get the means in the end, and to allow the end to justify 
whatever means seem to lead to its triumph. He must 
maintain as he can, and by any means, his power over 
the motley mass of followers that his mission has gath- 
ered round him, and will be apt to aim rather at what 
will hold them than at what will satisfy the highest 
promptings of his own conscience. 

We may allow the plea in such cases, though with 
sorrow and humiliation. But the more minutely we ex- 
amine the life of Christ the more we shall feel that here 
there is no place for it. We shall be impressed with 
the entire absence of any such bending to expediency, 
or fonrettin<r the means in the end. He never for one 
moment accommodates his life or teaching to any 
standard but the highest : never lowers or relaxes that 
standard by a shade or a hair's-breadth, to make the 
road easy to rich or powerful questioners, or to uphold 
the spirit of his poorer followers when they are startled 
and uneasy, as they begin half-blindly to recognize what 
spirit they are of. This unbending truthfulness is, then, 
what we have chiefly to look for in this period of tri- 
umphant progress and success, questioning each act and 
word in turn whether there is any swerving in it from 
the highest ideal. 



54 TRUE MANLINESS. 



XXXI. 



We may note that our Lord accepts at once the im- 
prisonment of the Baptist as the final call to himself. 
Gathering, therefore, a few of John's disciples round 
him, and welcoming the restless inquiring crowds who 
had been roused by the voice crying in the wilderness, 
he stands forward at once to proclaim and explain the 
nature of that new kingdom of God, which has now to 
be set up in the world. Standing forth alone, on the open 
hillside, the young Galilean peasant gives forth the great 
proclamation, which by one effort lifted mankind on to 
that new and higher ground on which it has been pain- 
fully struggling ever since, but on the whole with sure 
though slow success, to plant itself and maintain sure 
foothold. 

In all history there is no parallel to it. It stands 
there, a miracle or sign of God's reign in this world, far 
more wonderful than any of Christ's miracles of healing. 
Unbelievers have been sneering at and ridiculing it, and 
Christian doctors paring and explaining it away ever 
since. But there it stands, as strong and fresh as ever, 
the calm declaration and witness of what mankind is in- 
tended by God to become on this earth of his. 

As a question of courageous utterance, I would only 
ask you to read it through once more, bearing in mind 
who the preacher was — a peasant, already repudiated 
by his own neighbors and kinsfolk, and suspected by the 



POWER. 55 

national rulers and teachers ; and who were the hearers — 
a motley crowd of Jewish peasants and fishermen, Romish 
legionaries, traders from Damascus, Tyre, and Siclon, 
and the distant isles of Greece, with a large sprinkling 
of publicans, scribes, Pharisees, and lawyers. 

The immediate result of the sermon was to bow the 
hearts of this crowd for the time, so that he was able to 
choose followers from amongst them, much as he would. 
He takes fishermen and peasants, selecting only two at 
most, from any rank above the lowest, and one of these 
from a class more hated and despised by the Jews 
than the poorest peasant, the publicans. It is plain 
that he might at first have called apostles from amongst 
the upper classes had he desired it — as a teacher with 
any want of courage would surely have done. But the 
only scribe who offers himself is rejected. 

The calling of the Apostles is followed by a succes- 
sion of discourses and miracles, which move the people 
more and more, until, after that of the loaves, the popu- 
lar enthusiasm rises to the point it had so often reached 
in the case of other preachers and leaders of this strange 
people. They are ready to take him by force and make 
him a king. 

The Apostles apparently encouraged this enthusiasm, 
for which he constrains them into a ship, and sends 
them away before him. After rejoining them and re- 
buking their want of understanding and faith, he returns 
with them to the multitudes, and at once speaks of him- 



56 TRUE MANLINESS. 

self as the bread from heaven, in the discourse which 

offends many of his disciples, who from this time go 
back and walk no more with him. The brief season of 
triumphant progress is drawing to an end, during which 
he could rejoice in spirit in contemplating the human 
harvest which he and his disciples seem to be already 
successfully garnering. 

XXXII. 

The more carefully we study the long wrestle of 
Christ with the blind leaders of a doomed nation, the 
more we shall recognize the perfect truthfulness, and 
therefore the perfect courage, which marks his conduct 
of it. From beginning to end there is no word or act 
which can mislead friend or foe. The strife, though for 
life and death, has left no trace or stain on his nature. 
Fresh from the last and final conflict in the temple 
court, he can pause on the side of Olivet to weep over 
the city, the sight of which can still wring from him the 
pathetic yearnings of a soul purified from all taint of 
bitterness. 

It is this most tender and sensitive of the sons of 
men — with fibres answering to every touch and breath 
of human sympathy or human hate — who has borne 
with absolutely unshaken steadfastness the distrust and 
anger of kinsfolk, the ingratitude of converts, the blind- 
ness of disciples, the fitful and purblind worship and 



POWER. 57 

hatred, and fear, of the nation of the Jews. So far, we 
can estimate to some extent the burden and the strain, 
and realize the strength and beauty of the spirit which 
could bear it all. Beyond and behind lie depths into 
which we can but glance. For in those last hours of 
his life on earth the question was to be decided whether 
we men have in deed and truth a brotherhood, in a Son 
of Man, the head of humanity, who has united mankind 
to their Father, and can enable them to know him. 



XXXIII. 

It is around the life of the Son of Man and Son of 
God that the fiercest controversies of our time are 
raging. Is it not also becoming clearer every day that 
they will continue to rage more and more fiercely — that 
there can be no rest or peace possible for mankind — 
until all things are subdued to him, and brought into 
harmony with his life ? 

It is to this work that all churches and sects, that all 
the leading nations of the world, known collectively as 
Christendom, are pledged : and the time for redeeming 
that pledge is running out rapidly, as the distress and 
perplexity, the threatening disruption and anarchy of 
Christendom too clearly show. It is to this work too 
that you and I, every man and woman of us, are also 
called; and if we would go about it with any hope and 
courage, it can only be by keeping the life of Christ 



58 TRUE MANLINESS. 

vividly before us day by clay, and turning to it as to a 
fountain in the desert; as to the shadow of a great rock 
in a weary land. 

From behind the shadow the still small voice — more 
awful than tempest or earthquake — more sure and per- 
sistent than day and night — is always sounding, full of 
hope and strength to the weariest of us all, " Be of good 
cheer, I have overcome the world." 



XXXIV. 

Nicodemus was a leading member of the Sanhedrim, 
a representative of that section of the rulers who, like 
the rest of the nation, were expecting a deliverer, a 
king who should prevail against the Caesar. They had 
sent to the Baptist, and had heard of his testimony to 
the young Galilean, who had now come to Jerusalem, 
and was showing signs of a power which they could not 
but acknowledge. For, had he not cleansed the temple, 
which they had never been able to do, but, notwithstand- 
ing their pretended reverence for it, had allowed to be 
turned into a shambles and an exchange ? They saw 
that a part of the people were ready to gather to him, 
but that he had refused to commit himself to them. 
This, then, the best of them must have felt, was no mere 
leader of a low, fierce, popular party or faction. Nic- 
odemus at any rate was evidently inclined to doubt 
whether he might not prove to be the king they were 



POWER. 59 

looking for, as the Baptist had declared. The doubt 
must be solved, and he would see for himself. 

And so he comes to Christ, and hears directly from 
him, that he has indeed come to set up a kingdom, but 
that it is no visible kingdom like the Caesars', but a 
kingdom over men's spirits, one in which rulers as well 
as peasants must become new men before they can 
enter — that a light has come into the world, and " he 
that doeth truth cometh to that light." 

From beginning; to end there is no word to catch this 
ruler, or those he represented ; no balancing of phrases 
or playing with plausible religious shibboleths, with 
which Nicodemus would be familiar, and which might 
please, and perchance reconcile this well-disposed 
ruler, and the powerful persons he represented. There 
is, depend upon it, no severer test of manliness than our 
behavior to powerful persons, whose aid would advance 
the cause we have at heart. We know from the later 
records that the interview of that night, and the strange 
words he had heard at it, made a deep impression on 
this ruler. His manliness, however, breaks down for 
the present. He shrinks back and disappears, leaving 
the strange young peasant to go on his way. 

The same splendid directness and incisiveness char- 
acterize his teaching at Samaria. There, again, He 
attacks at once the most cherished local traditions, show- 
ing that the place of worship matters nothing, the object 
of worship everything That object is a Father of men's 



60 TRUE MANLINESS. 

spirits, who wills that all men shall know and worship 
him, but who can only be worshipped in spirit and in 
truth. He, the peasant who is talking to them, is him- 
self the Messiah, who has come from this Father of them 
and him, to give them this spirit of truth in their own 
hearts. 

The Jews at Jerusalem had been clamoring round him 
for signs of his claim to speak such words, and in the 
next few days his own people would be crying out foi 
his blood when they heard them. These Samaritans 
make no such demand, but hear and recognize the 
message and the messenger. The seed is sown and he 
passes on, never to return and garner the harvest ; de- 
liberately preferring the hard, priest-ridden lake-cities 
of the Jews as the centre of his ministry. He will leave 
ripe fields for others to reap. This decision, interpret it 
as we will, is that of no soft or timid reformer. Take 
this test and compare Christ's choice of his first field 
for work with that of any other great leader of men. 



XXXV. 

Happy is the man who is able to follow straight on, 
though often wearily and painfully, in the tracks of the 
divine ideal who stood by his side in his youth, though 
sadly conscious of weary lengths of way, of gulfs and 
chasms, which since those clays have come to stretch 



SUCCESS. 6 1 

between him and his ideal — of the difference between 
the man God meant him to be — of the manhood he 
thought he saw so clearly in those early days — and the 
man he and the world together managed to make of 
him. 

I say, happy is that man. I had almost said that no 
other than he is happy in any true or noble sense, even 
in this hard materialistic nineteenth century, when the 
faith, that the weak must go to the wall, that the strong 
alone are to survive, prevails as it never did before — 
which on the surface seems specially to be organized for 
the destruction of ideals and the quenching of enthusi- 
asms. I feel deeply the responsibility of making any 
assertion on so moot a point ; nevertheless, even in our 
materialistic age, I must urge you all, as you would do 
good work in the world, to take your stand resolutely 
and once for all, and all your lives through, on the side 
of the idealists. 

XXXVI. 

He who has the clearest and intensest vision of what 
is at issue in the great battle of life, and who quits him- 
self in it most manfully, will be the first to acknowledge 
that for him there has been no approach to victory 
except by the faithful doing day by day of the work 
which lay at his own threshold. 

On the other hand, the universal experience of man- 



62 TRUE MANLINESS. 

kind — the dreary confession of those who have merely 
sought a " low thing," and " gone on adding one to 
one ; " making that the aim and object of their lives — ■ 
unite in warning us that on these lines no true victory 
can be had, either for the man himself or for the cause 
he was sent into the world to maintain. 

No, there is no victory possible without humility and 
magnanimity; and no humility or magnanimity possible 
without an ideal. Now there is not one amongst us all 
who has not heard the call in his own heart to put aside 
all evil habits, and to live a brave, simple, truthful life. 
It is no modern, no Christian experience, this. The 
choice of Hercules, and numberless other Pagan 
stories, the witness of nearly all histories and all litera- 
tures, attest that it is an experience common to all our 
race. It is of it that the poet is thinking in those fine 
lines of Emerson which are written up in the Hall of 
Marlborough College : 

" So close is glory to our dust, 

So near is God to man — 
When duty whispers low, ' thou must,' 

The youth replies, 1 1 can.' " 

It is this whisper, this call, which is the ground of what 
I have, for want of a better name, been speaking of as 
idealism. Just in so far as one listens to and welcomes 
it he is becoming an idealist — one who is rising out of 



SUCCESS. 63 

himself, and into direct contact and communion with 
spiritual influences, which even when he shrinks from 
them, and tries to put them aside, he feels and knows 
to be as real — to be more real than all influences com- 
ing to him from the outside world — one who is bent on 
bringinsr himself and the world into obedience to these 
spiritual influences. If he turns to meet the call and 
answers ever so feebly and hesitatingly, it becomes 
clearer and stronger. He will feel next, that just in so 
far as he is becoming: loval to it he is becoming loval to 
his brethren : that he must not only build his own life 
up in conformity with its teaching, must not only find 
or cut his own way straight to what is fair and true and 
noble, but must help on those who are around him and 
will come after him, and make the path easier and 
plainer for them also. 

I have indicated in outline, in a few sentences, a 
process which takes a life-time to work out. You all 
know too, alas ! even those who have already listened 
most earnestly to the voice, and followed most faithfully, 
how many influences there are about you and within you 
which stand across the first steps in the path, and bar 
your progress ; which are forever dwarfing and distort- 
ing the ideal you are painfully struggling after, and ap- 
pealing to the cowardice and laziness and impurity 
which are in every one of us, to thwart obedience to the 
call. But here, as elsewhere, it is the first step which 
costs, and tells. He who has once taken that, con- 



64 TRUE MANLINESS. 

sciously and resolutely, has gained a vantage-ground 
for all his life. 



XXXVII. 

Our race on both sides of the Atlantic has, for gener- 
ations, got and spent money faster than any other, and 
this spendthrift habit has had a baleful effect on English 
life. It has made it more and more feverish and unsat- 
isfying. The standard of expenditure has been increas- 
ing by leaps and bounds, and demoralizing trade, 
society, every industry, and every profession until a 
false ideal has established itself, and the aim of life is 
too commonly to get, not to be, while men are valued 
more and more for what they have, not for what they 
are. 

The reaction has, I trust, set in. But the reign of 
Mammon will be hard to put down, and all wholesome 
influences which can be brought to bear upon that evil 
stronghold will be sorely needed. 

I say, deliberately, that no man can gauge the value, 
at this present critical time, of a steady stream of young 
men, flowing into all professions and all industries, who 
have learnt resolutely to speak in a society such as ours, 
" I can't afford ; " who have been trained to have few 
wants and to serve these themselves, so that they may 
have always something to spare of power and of means 
to help others ; who are " careless of the comfits and 



SVCCJ2SS. 6 5 

cushions of life," and content to leave them to the valets 
of all ranks. 

And take my word for it, while such young men will 
be doing a great work for their country, and restoring 
an ideal which has all but faded out, they will be taking 
the surest road to all such success as becomes honest 
men to achieve, in whatever walk of life they may choose 
for themselves. 



XXXVIII. 

The first aim for your time and your generation 
should be, to foster, each in yourselves, a simple and 
self-denying life — your ideal to be a true and useful 
one, must have these two characteristics before all 
others. Of course purity, courage, truthfulness are as 
absolutely necessary as ever, without them there can be 
no ideal at all. But as each age and each country has 
its own special needs and weaknesses, so the best mind 
of its youth should be bent on serving where the need is 
sorest, and bringing strength to the weak places. There 
will be always crowds ready to fall in with the dapper, 
pliant ways which lead most readily to success in every 
community. Society has been said to be " always and 
everywhere in conspiracy against the true manhood of 
every one of its members," and the saying, though 
bitter, contains a sad truth. So the faithful idealist will 
have to learn, without arrogance and with perfect good 



66 TRUE MANLINESS. 

temper, to treat society as a child, and never to allow it 
to dictate. So treated, society will surely come round 
to those who have a high ideal before them, and there- 
fore firm ground under their feet. 

" Coy Hebe flies from those that woo 
And shuns the hand would seize upon her; 
Live thou thy life, and she will sue, 
To pour for thee the cup of honor." 

Let me say a word or two more on this business of suc- 
cess. Is it not, after all, the test of true and faithful 
work ? Must it not be the touchstone of the humble 
and magnanimous, as well as of the self -asserting and 
ambitious ? Undoubtedly ; but here again we have to 
note that what passes with society for success, and is so 
labeled by public opinion, may well be, as often as not 
actually is, a bad kind of failure. 

Public opinion in our day has, for instance, been 
jubilant over the success of those who have started in 
life penniless and have made large fortunes. Indeed, 
■lis particular class of self-made men is the one which 
we have been of late invited to honor. Before doing 
so, however, we shall have to ask with some care, and 
bearing in mind Emerson's warnings, by what method 
the fortune has been made. The rapid accumulation of 
national wealth in England can scarcely be called a 
success by any one who studies the methods by which 
it has been made, and its effects on the national charac- 



SUCCESS. 67 

ter. It may be otherwise with this or that millionaire, 
but each case must be judged on its own merits. 



XXXIX. 

I remember hearing, years ago, of an old merchant 
who, on his death-bed, divided the results of long years 
of labor, some few hundreds in all, amongst his sons. 
" It is little enough, my boys," were almost his last 
words, " but there isn't a dirty shilling in the whole of 
it." He had been a successful man too, though not in 
the " self-made " sense. For his ideal had been, not to 
make money, but to keep clean hands. And he had 
been faithful to it. 

XL. 

In reading the stories of many persons whom the 
English nation is invited to honor, I am generally struck 
with the predominance of the personal element. The 
key-note seems generally some resolve taken in early 
youth connected with their own temporal advancement. 
This one will be Lord Mayor ; this other Prime Minis- 
ter \ a third determines to own a fine estate near the 
place of his birth, a fourth to become head of the busi- 
ness in which he started as an errand-boy. They did 
indeed achieve their ends, were faithful to the idea they 
had set before themselves as boys ; but I doubt if we 



68 TRUE MANLINESS. 

can put them anywhere but in the lower school of 
idealists. For the predominant motive being self- 
assertion, their idealism seems never to have got past 
the personal stage, which at best is but a poor business 
as compared with the true thing. 



XLI. 

Christ is the great idealist. " Be ye perfect as your 
Father in heaven is perfect," is the ideal he sets before 
us — the only one which is permanent and all-sufficing. 
His own spirit communing with ours is the call which 
comes to every human being. 

XLII. 

Blessed is the man who has the gift of making 
friends ; for it is one of God's best gifts. It involves 
many things, but above all, the power of going out of 
one's self, and seeing and appreciating whatever is noble 
and living in another man. 

But, even to him who has the gift, it is often a great 
puzzle to find out whether a man is really a friend or 
not. The following is recommended as a test in the 
case of any man about whom you are not quite sure ; 
especially if he should happen to have more of this 
world's goods, either in the shape of talents, rank, 
money, or what not, than you : 



FRIENDSHIP. 69 

Fancy the man stripped stark naked of every thing in 
the world, except an old pair of trousers and a shirt, 
for decency's sake, without even a name to him, and 
dropped down in the middle of Holborn or Piccadilly. 
Would you go up to him then and there, and lead him 
out from among the cabs and omnibuses, and take him 
to your own home, and feed him, and clothe him, and 
stand by him against all the world, to your last sover- 
eign and your last leg-of-mutton ? If you wouldn't do 
this, you have no right to call him by the sacred name 
of friend. If you would, the odds are that he would do 
the same by you, and you may count yourself a rich 
man ; for, probably, were friendship expressible by, or 
convertible into current coin of the realm, one such 
friend would be worth to a man at least ,£"100,000. How 
many millionaires are there in England ? I can't even 
guess ; but more by a good many, I fear, than there are 
men who have ten real friends. But friendship is not 
so expressible or convertible. It is more precious than 
wisdom, and wisdom " can not be gotten for gold, nor 
shall rubies be mentioned in comparison thereof.'' Xot 
all the riches that ever came out of earth and sea are 
worth the assurance of one such real abiding friendship 
in your heart of hearts. 

But for the worth of a friendship commonly so called 
— meaning thereby a sentiment founded on the good 
dinners, good stories, opera stalls, and days' shooting, 
you have gotten or hope to get out of a man, the snug 



7o TRUE MANLINESS. 

things in his gift, and his powers of procuring enjoyment 
of one kind or another to your miserable body or intel- 
lect — why, such a friendship as that is to be appraised 
easily enough, if you find it worth your while ; but you 
will have to pay your pound of flesh for it one way or 
another — you may take your oath of that. If you 
follow my advice, you will take a ^10 note down, and 
retire to your crust of bread and liberty. 



XLIII. 

The idea of entertaining, of being hospitable, is a 
pleasant and fascinating one to most young men ; but 
the act soon gets to be a bore to all but a few curiously 
constituted individuals. With these hospitality becomes 
first a passion and then a faith — a faith the practice of 
which, in the cases of some of its professors, reminds 
one strongly of the hints on such subjects scattered 
about the New Testament. Most of us feel, when our 
friends leave us, a certain sort of satisfaction, not unlike 
that of paying a bill ; they have been done for, and can't 
expect anything more for a long time. Such thoughts 
never occur to your really hospitable man. Long years 
of narrow means can not hinder him from keeping open 
house for whoever wants to come to him, and setting 
the best of everything before all comers. He has no 
notion of giving you anything but the best he can com- 



FPIENDSHIP. 71 

mand. He asks himself not, " Ought I to invite A or 
B ? do I owe him anything ? " but, " Would A or B like 
to come here ? " Give me these men's houses for real 
enjoyment, though you never get anything very* choice 
there — (how can a man produce old wine who gives his 
oldest every day?) — seldom much elbow-room or order- 
ly arrangement. The high arts of gastronomy and 
scientific drinking, so much valued in our highly-civilized 
community, are wholly unheeded by him, are altogether 
above him, are cultivated, in fact, by quite another set, 
who have very little of the genuine spirit of hospitality 
in them ; from whose tables, should one by chance hap- 
pen upon them, one rises, certainly with a feeling of sat- 
isfaction and expansion, chiefly physical, but entirely 
without that expansion of heart which one gets at the 
scramble of the hospitable man. So that we are driven 
to remark, even in such every-day matters as these, that 
it is the invisible, the spiritual, which, after all, gives 
value and reality even to dinners • and, with Solomon, 
to prefer to the most touching diner Russe the dinner of 
herbs where love is, though I trust that neither we nor 
Solomon should object to well-dressed cutlets with our 
salad, if they happen to be going. 

XLIV. 

There are few of us who do not like to see a man 
living a brave and righteous life, so long as he keeps 



72 TRUE MANLINESS. ' 

clear of us ; and still fewer who do like to be in constant 
contact with one who, not content with so living him- 
self, is always coming across them, and laying bare to 
them their own faint-heartedness, and sloth, and mean- 
ness. The latter, no doubt, inspires the deeper feeling, 
and lays hold with a firmer grip of the men he does lay 
hold of, but they are few. For men can't keep always 
up to high pressure till they have found firm ground to 
build upon, altogether outside of themselves ; and it is 
hard to be thankful and fair to those who are showing 
us, time after time, that our foothold is nothing but 
shifting sand. 

XLV 

Reader ! had you not ever a friend a few years older 
than yourself, whose good opinion you were anxious to 
keep? A fellow teres atque rotundus ; who could do 
everything better than you, from Plato and tennis down 
to singing a comic song and playing quoits ? If you 
have had, wasn't he always in your rooms or company 
whenever anything happened to show your little weak 
points ? 

XLVI. 

To come back home after every stage of life's journey- 
ing with a wider horizon — more in sympathy with men 
and nature, knowing ever more of the righteous and 



ENJOYMENT. 73 

eternal laws which govern them, and of the righteous 
and loving will which- is above all, and around all, and 
beneath all, this must be the end and aim of all of us, 
or we shall be wandering about blind-fold, and spend- 
ing time and labor and journey-money on that which 
profiteth nothing. 

XLVII. 

What man among us all, if he will think the matter 
over calmly and fairly, can honestly say that there is 
any spot on the earth's surface in which he has enjoyed 
so much rea 1 , wholesome, happy life as in a hay field ? 
He may have won on horseback or on foot at the sports 
and pastimes in which Englishmen glory \ he may have 
shaken off all rivals, time after time, across the vales of 
Aylesbury, or of Berks, or any other of our famous hunt- 
ing counties \ he may have stalked the oldest and shyest 
buck in Scotch forests, and killed the biggest salmon of 
the year in the Tweed, and trout in the Thames ; he 
may have made topping averages in first-rate matches 
of cricket ; or have made long and perilous marches, 
dear to memory, over boggy moor, or mountain, or 
glacier ; he may have successfully attended many 
breakfast-parties within drive of Mayfair, on velvet 
lawns, surrounded by all the fairy-land of pomp, and 
beauty, and luxury, which London can pour out ; his 
voice may have sounded over hushed audiences at St. 



74 TRUE MANLINESS. 

Stephens or in the law-courts ; or he may have had good 
times in any other scenes of pleasure or triumph open to 
Englishmen ; but I much doubt whether, on putting his 
recollections fairly and quietly together he would not 
say at last that the fresh-mown hay-field is the place 
where he has spent the most hours which he would like 
to live over again, the fewest which he would wish to 
forget. 

As children, we stumble about the new-mown hay, 
revelling in the many colors of the prostrate grass and 
wild flowers, and in the power of tumbling where we 
please without hurting ourselves ; as small boys, we 
pelt one another, and the village school-girls, and our 
nurse-maids, and young lady cousins with the hay, till, 
hot and weary, we retire to tea or syllabub beneath the 
shade of some great oak or elm standing up like a mon- 
arch out of the fair pasture ; or, following the mowers, 
we rush with eagerness on the treasures disclosed by 
the scythe stroke — the nest of the unhappy late-laying 
titlark, or careless field-mouse ; as big boys, we toil am- 
bitiously with the spare forks and rakes, or climb into 
the wagons and receive with open arms the delicious 
load as it is pitched up from below, and rises higher and 
higher as we pass along the long lines of haycocks : a 
year or two later we are strolling there with our first 
sweethearts, our souls and tongues loaded with sweet 
thoughts, and soft speeches ; we take a turn with the 
scythe as the bronzed mosses lie in the shade for their 



ENJOYMENT. 75 

short rest, and willingly pay our footing for the feat. 
Again, we come back with book in pocket, and our own 
children tumbling about us as we did before them ; now 
romping with them, and smothering them with the sweet- 
smelling load — now musing and reading and dozing 
away the delicious summer evenings. And so shall we 
not come back to the end, enjoying as grandfathers the 
love-making and the rompings of younger generations 
yet? 

Were any of us ever really disappointed or melan- 
choly in a hay-field ? Did we ever lie fairly back on a 
hay-cock and look up into the blue sky, and listen to 
the merry sounds, the whetting of scythes, and the 
laughing prattle of women and children, and think evil 
thoughts of the world or our brethren ? Not we ! or, if 
we have so done, we ought to be ashamed of ourselves, 
and deserve never to be out of town again during hay- 
harvest. 

There is something in the sights and sounds of a hay- 
field which seems to touch the same chord in one as 
Lowell's lines in the " Lay of Sir Launfal," which end : 

" For a cap and a bell our lives we pay, 

We wear out our lives with toiling and tasking; 

It is only Heaven that is given away ; 

It is only God may be had for the asking." 

But the philosophy of the hay-field remains to be 
written. Let us hope that whoever takes the subject in 



76 TRUE MANLINESS. 

hand will not dissipate all its sweetness in the process 
of the inquiry wherein the charm lies. 



XLVIII. 

Who among you, dear readers, can appreciate the in- 
tense delight of grassing your first big fish after a nine- 
months' fast ? All first sensations have their special 
pleasure ; but none can be named, in a small way, to 
beat this of the first fish of the season. The first clean 
leg-hit for four in your first match at Lord's — the 
grating of the bows of your racing-boat against the stern 
of the boat ahead in your first race — the first half-mile 
of a burst from the cover-side in November, when the 
hounds in the field ahead may be covered in a table- 
cloth, and no one but the huntsman and a top sawyer or 
two lies between you and them — the first brief after 
your call to the bar, if it comes within the year — the 
sensations produced by these are the same in kind ; but 
cricket, boating, getting briefs, even hunting, lose their 
edge as time goes on. But the first fish comes back as 
fresh as ever, or ought to come, if all men had their 
rights, once in a season. So, good luck to the gentle 
craft and its professors, and may the Fates send us 
much into their company ! The trout-fisher, like the 
landscape-painter, haunts the loveliest places of the 
earth, and haunts them alone. Solitude, nature, and 



ENJOYMENT. 77 

his own thoughts — he must be on the best terms with 
all these ; and he who can take kindly the largest allow- 
ance of these is likely to be the kindliest and truest with 
his fellow-men. 

XLIX. 

How many spots in life are there which will bear 
comparison with the beginning of a college boy's second 
term at Oxford ? So far as external circumstances are 
concerned, it seems hard to know what a man could 
find to ask for at that period of his life, if a fairy god- 
mother were to alight in his rooms and offer him the 
usual three wishes. In our second term we are no 
longer freshmen, and begin to feel ourselves at home, 
while both " smalls " and " greats " are sufficiently dis- 
tant to be altogether ignored if we are that way inclined, 
or to be looked forward to with confidence that the 
game is in our own hands if we are reading men. Our 
financial position — unless we have exercised rare in- 
genuity in involving ourselves — is all that heart can 
desire \ we have ample allowances paid in quarterly to 
the university bankers without thought or trouble of 
ours, and our credit is at its zenith. It is a part of our 
recognized duty to repay the hospitality we have re- 
ceived as freshmen ; and all men will be sure to come 
10 our first parties, to see how we do the thing ; it will 
be our own fault if we do not keep them in future. We 



78 TRUE MANLINESS. 

have not had time to injure our characters to any 
material extent with the authorities of our own college, 
or of the university. Our spirits are never likely to be 
higher, or our digestions better. These, and many 
other comforts and advantages, environ the fortunate 
youth returning to Oxford after his first vacation ; thrice 
fortunate, however, if it is Easter term to which he is 
returning ; for that Easter term, with the four days' va- 
cation, and little Trinity term at the head of it, is surely 
the cream of the Oxford year. Then, even in this our 
stern Northern climate, the sun is beginning to have 
power, the days have lengthened out, great-coats are un- 
necessary at morning chapel, and the miseries of 
numbed hands and shivering skins no longer accompany 
every pull on the river and canter on Bullingdon. In 
Christ-church meadows and the college gardens the 
birds are making sweet music in the tall elms. You 
may almost hear the thick grass growing, and the buds 
on tree and shrub are changing from brown, red, or 
purple, to emerald green under your eyes ; the glorious 
old city is putting on her best looks and bursting out 
into laughter and song. In a few weeks the races begin, 
and Cowley marsh will be alive with white tents and 
joyous cricketers. A quick ear, on the towing-path by 
the Gut, may feast at one time on those three sweet 
sounds, the thud, thud of the eight-oar, the crack of the 
rifles at the Weirs, and the click of the bat on the Mag- 
dalen ground. And then Commemoration rises in the 



ENJOYMENT. 79 

background, with its clouds of fair visitors, and visions 
of excursions to Woodstock and Nuneham in the sum- 
mer days — of windows open on to the old quadrangles in 
the long still evenings, through which silver laughter 
and strains of sweet music, not made by man, steal out 
and puzzle the old celibate jackdaws, peering down 
from the battlements with heads on one side. To 
crown all, long vacation, beginning with the run to 
Henley regatta, or up to town to see the match with 
Cambridge at Lord's, and taste some of the sweets of 
the season before starting on some pleasure tour or 
reading-party, or dropping back into the quiet pleasures 
of English country life ! Surely the lot of young Eng- 
lishmen who frequent our universities is cast in pleasant 
places. The country has a right to expect something 
from those for whom she finds such a life as this in the 
years when enjoyment is keenest. 



In all the wide range of accepted British maxims 
there is none, take it for all in all, more thoroughly 
abominable than the one as to the sowing of wild oats. 
Look at it on what side you will, and you can make 
nothing but a devil's maxim of it. What a man — be 
he young, old, or middle-aged — sows, that, and nothing 
else shall he reap. The one only thing to do with wild 
oats is to put them carefully into the hottest part of the 



80 TRUE MANLINESS. 

fire, and get them burnt to dust, every seed of them. If 
you sow them, no matter in what ground, up they will 
come, with long, tough roots like couch-grass, and lux- 
uriant stalks and leaves as sure as there is a sun in 
heaven — a crop which it makes one's heart cold to 
think of. The devil, too, whose special crop they are, 
will see that they thrive, and you, and nobody else will 
have to reap them ; and no common reaping will get 
them out of the soil, which must be dug down deep 
again and again. Well for you if, with all your care, 
you can make the ground sweet again by your dying 
day. " Boys will be boys," is not much better, but that 
has a true side to it ; but this encouragement to the 
sowing of wild oats is simply devilish, for it means that 
a young man is to give way to the temptations and fol- 
low the lusts of his age. What are Ave to do with the 
wild oats of manhood and old age — with ambition, 
over-reaching, the false weights, hardness, suspicion, av- 
arice — if the wild oats of youth are to be sown and not 
burnt ? What possible distinction can we draw between 
them ? If we may sow the one, why not the other ? 



LI. 

Man of all ages is a selfish animal, and unreasonable 
in his selfishness. It takes every one of us in turn many 
a shrewd fall, in our wrestlings with the world to con- 
vince us that we are not to have everything our own 



ENJOYMENT. 81 

way. We are conscious in our inmost souls that man 
is the rightful lord of creation ; and, starting from this 
eternal principle, and ignoring, each man-child of us in 
turn, the qualifying truth that it is to man in general, in- 
cluding women, and not to one man in particular, that 
the earth has been given, we set about asserting our 
kingships each in his own way, and proclaiming ourselves 
kings from our own little ant-hills of thrones. And then 
come the struggles and the down-fallings, and some of 
us learn our lesson, and some learn it not. But what 
lesson ? That we have been dreaming in the golden 
hours when the vision of a kingdom rose before us ? 
That there is in short, no kingdom at all, or that, if there 
be, we are no heirs of it ? 

No — I take it that, while we make nothing better 
than that out of our lesson, we shall go on spelling at 
it and stumbling over it, through all the days of our 
life, till we make our last stumble, and take our final 
header out of this riddle of a world, which we once 
dreamed we were to rule over, exclaiming " vanitas 
vanitatum " to the end. But man's spirit will never be 
satisfied without a kingdom, and was never intended to 
be satisfied so ; and a wiser than Solomon tells us, day 
by day, that our kingdom is about us here, and that we 
may rise up and pass in when we will at the shining 
gates which he holds open, for that it is His, and we are 
joint heirs of it with Him. 



82 TRUE MANLINESS. 



LII. 

The world is clear and bright, and ever becoming 
clearer and brighter to the humble, and true, and pure 
of heart — to every man and woman who will live in it 
as the children of the Maker and Lord of it, their 
Father. To them, and to them alone, is that world, 
old and new, given, and all that is in it, fully and freely 
to enjoy. All others but these are occupying where they 
have no title ; " they are sowing much, but bringing in 
little ; they eat, but have not enough ; they drink but 
are not filled with drink ■ they clothe themselves, but 
there is none warm ; and he of them who earneth wages 
earneth wages to put them into a bag with holes." But 
these have the world and all things for a rightful and 
rich inheritance ; for they hold them as dear children of 
Him in whose hand it and they are lying, and no power 
in earth or hell shall pluck them out of their Father's 
hand. 



LIII. 

The great Danish invasion of England in the ninth 
century is one of those facts which meet us at every 
turn in the life of the world, raising again and again the 
deepest of all questions. At first sight it stands out 
simply as the triumph of brute force, cruelty, and an- 
archy, over civilization and order. It was eminently 



FAITH. 83 

successful, for the greater part of the kingdom remained 
subject to the invaders. In its progress all such civil- 
ization as had taken root in the land was for the time 
trodden out ; whole districts were depopulated ; lands 
thrown out of cultivation ; churches, abbeys, monaster- 
ies, the houses of nobles and peasants, razed to the 
ground ; libraries (such as then existed) and works of 
art ruthlessly burnt and destroyed. It threw back all 
Alfred's reforms for eight years. To the poor East 
Anglian or West Saxon, churl or monk, who had been 
living his quiet life there, honestly, and in the fear of 
God, according to his lights — to him hiding away in the 
swamps of the forest, amongst the swine, running wild 
now for lack of herdsmen, and thinking bitterly of the 
sack of his home, and murder of his brethren, or of his 
wife and children by red-handed Pagans, the heavens 
would indeed seem to be shut, and the earth delivered 
over to the powers of darkness. Would it not seem so 
to us if we were in like case ? Have we any faith which 
would stand such a strain as that ? 

Who shall say for himself that he has ? And yet what 
Christian does not know, in his heart of hearts, that 
there is such a faith for himself and for the world — 
the faith which must have carried Alfred through those 
fearful years, and strengthened him to build up a new 
and better England out of the ruins the Danes left be- 
hind them ? For, hard as it must be to keep alive any 
behei or hope during a time when all around us is reel- 



84 TRUE MANLINESS. 

ing, and the powers of evil seem to be let loose on the 
earth, when we look back upon these " days of the 
Lord " there is no truth which stands out more clearly 
on the face of history than this, that they all and each 
have been working towards order and life, that "the 
messengers of death have been messengers of resurrec- 
tion." 

LIV. 

When the corn and wine and oil, the silver and the 
gold, have become the main object of worship — that 
which men or nations do above all things desire — sham 
work of all kinds, and short cuts, by what we call financ- 
ing and the like will be the means by which they will 
attempt to gain them. 

When that state comes, men who love jtheir country 
will welcome Danish invasions, civil wars, potato dis- 
eases, cotton famines, Fenian agitations, whatever 
calamity may be needed to awake the higher life again, 
and bid the nation arise and live. 

That such visitations do come at such times as a 
matter of fact is as clear as that in certain states of the 
atmosphere we have thunder-storms. The thunder-storm 
comes with perfect certainty, and as a part of a natural 
and fixed order. We are all agreed upon that now. 
We all believe, I suppose, that there is an order — that 
there are laws which govern the physical world, assert- 



FAITH. 85 

ing themselves as much in storm and earthquake as in 
the succession of night and day, of seed-time and har- 
vest. We who are Christians believe that order and 
those laws to proceed from God, to be expressions of 
His will. Do we not also believe that men are under a 
divine order as much as natural things ? that there is a 
law of righteousness founded on the will of God, as sure 
and abiding as the law of gravitation ? that this law of 
righteousness, this divine order, under which human 
beings are living on this earth, must and does assert and 
vindicate itself through and by the acts and lives of 
men, as surely as the divine order in nature asserts it- 
self through the agency of the invisible power in earth 
and sea and air ? 

Surely Christianity, whatever else it teaches, at any 
rate assures us of this. And when we have made this 
faith our own, when we believe it, and not merely be- 
lieve that we believe it, we have in our hand the clue to 
all human history. Mysteries in abundance will always 
remain. We may not be able to trace the workings of 
the law of righteousness in the confusions and bewilder- 
ments of our own day, or through the darkness and mist 
which shrouds so much of the life of other times and 
other races. But we know that it is there, and that it 
has its ground in a righteous will, which was the same a 
thousand years ago as it is to-day, which every man and 
nation can get to know ■ and just in so far as they know 



86 TRUE MANLINESS. 

and obey which, will they be founding families, institu- 
tions, states, which will abide. 

If we want to test this truth in the most practical 
manner, we have only to take any question which has 
troubled, or is troubling, statesmen and rulers, and 
nations, in our own day. The slavery question is among 
the greatest of these. In the divine order, that institu- 
tion was not recognized, there was no place at all set 
apart for it ; on the contrary, He on whose will that 
order rests had said that he came to break every yoke. 
And so slavery would give our kindred in America no 
rest, just as it would give England no rest in the first 
thirty years of the century. The nation, desiring to 
go on living its life, making money, subduing a conti- 
nent, 

" Pitching new states as old-world men pitch tents," 

tried every plan for getting rid of the "irrepressible 
negro " question, except the only one recognized in the 
divine order — that of making him free. The ablest 
and most moderate men, the Websters and Clays, 
thought and spoke and worked to keep it on its legs. 
Missouri compromises were agreed to, " Mason and 
Dixon's lines " laid down, joint committees of both 
houses — at last even a "crisis committee," as it was 
called — invented plan after plan to get it finally out of 
the way by any means except the only one which the 
eternal law, the law of righteousness, prescribed. But 



FAITH. 8 j 

he whose will must be done on earth was no party 
to Missouri compromises, and Mason and Dixon's line 
was not laid down on his map of North America. And 
there never were wanting men who could recognize His 
will, and denounce even- compromise, every endeavor 
to set it aside, or escape from it, as a " covenant with 
death and hell." Despised and persecuted men — 
Garrisons and John Browns — were raised up to fight this 
battle, with tongue and pen and life's blood, the weak 
things of this world to confound the mighty ; men who 
could look bravely in the face the whole power and 
strength of their nation in the faith of the old prophet : 
" Associate yourselves and ye shall be broken in pieces ; 
gather yourselves together and ye shall come to nought, 
for God is with us." And at last the thunder-storm 
broke, and when it cleared away the law of righteous- 
ness had asserted itself once again, and the nation was 
delivered. 

And so it has been, and is, and will be to the end of 
time with all nations. We have all our " irrepressible " 
questions of one kind or another, more or less urgent, 
rising up again and again to torment and baffle us, re- 
fusing to give us 'any peace until they have been settled 
in accordance with the law of righteousness, which is 
the will of God. No clever handling of them will put 
them to rest. Such work will not last. If we have 
wisdom and faith enough amongst us to ascertain and do 
that will, we may settle them for ourselves in clear skies. 



88 TRUE MANLINESS. 

If not, the clouds will gather, the atmosphere grow heavy, 
and the storm break in due course, and they will be 
settled for us in ways which we least expect or desire, 
for it is " the Lord's controversy." 

In due course, perhaps ! but what if this due course 
means lifetimes, centuries ? Alas ! this is indeed the 
cry which has been going up from the poor earth these 
thousands of years : 

" The priests and the rulers are swift to wrong, 
And the mills of God are slow to grind." 

How long, O Lord, how long ? The precise times 
and seasons man shall never know on this earth. 
These the Lord has kept in his own power. But cour- 
age, my brother ! Can we not see, the blindest of us, 
that the mills are working swiftly, at least in our day? 
This is no age in which shams or untruths, whether old 
or new, are likely to have a quiet time or a long life of 
it. In all departments of human affairs — religious, 
political, social — we are travelling fast, in England and 
elsewhere, and under the hand and guidance, be sure, of 
Him who made the world, and is able and willing to 
take care of it. Only let us quit ourselves like men, 
trusting to Him to put down whatsoever loveth or 
maketh a lie, and in his own time to establish the new 
earth in which shall dwell righteousness. 



FAITH. 89 



LV. 



In these clays when our wise generation, weighed 
clown with wealth and its handmaid vices on the one 
hand, and exhilarated by some tiny steps it has man- 
aged to make on the threshold of physical knowledge of 
various kinds on the other, would seem to be bent on 
ignoring its Creator and God altogether — or at least of 
utterly denying that he has revealed, or is revealing 
himself, unless it be through the laws of nature — one 
of the commonest demurrers to Christianity has been, 
that it is no faith for fighters, for the men who have had 
to do the roughest and hardest work for the world. I 
fear that some sections of Christians have been too 
read)- to allow this demurrer, and fall back on the 
Quaker doctrines ; admitting thereby that such "Gospel 
of the kingdom of heaven " as they can for their part 
heartily believe in, and live up to, is after all only a 
poor cash-gospel, and cannot bear the dust and dirt, the 
glare and horror of battle-fields. Those of us who hold 
that man was sent into this earth for the express pur- 
pose of fighting — of uncompromising and unending 
fighting with body, intellect, spirit, against whomsoever 
and whatsoever causeth or maketh a lie, and therefore, 
alas ! too often against his brother-man — would, of 
course, have to give up Christianity if this were true ; 
nay, if they did not believe that precisely the contrary 
of this is true, that Christ can call them as plainly in 



90 TRUE MANLINESS. 

the drum beating to battle, as in the bell calling to 
prayer, can and will be as surely with them in the shock 
of angry hosts as in the gathering before the altar. But 
without entering further into the great controversy here, 
I would ask readers fairly and calmly to consider 
whether all the greatest fighting that has been done in 
the world has not been done by men who believed, and 
showed by their lives that they believed, they had a di- 
rect call from God to do it, and that He was present 
with them in their work. And further (as I cheerfully 
own that this test would tell as much in favor of Ma- 
hommet as of Cromwell, Gustavus Adolphus, John 
Brown) whether, on the whole, Christian nations have 
not proved stronger in battle than any others ? I would 
not press the point unfairly, or overlook such facts as 
the rooting out of the British by the West Saxons when 
the latter were Pagans ; all I maintain is, that faith in 
the constant presence of God in and around them has 
been the support of those who have shown the strongest 
hearts, the least love of ease and life, the least fear of 
death and pain. 

LVI. 

Supposing the whole Bible, every trace of Christen- 
dom to disappear to-morrow, we should each of us be 
conscious of a presence, which we are quite sure is not 
ourself, in the deepest recesses of our own heart, com- 



PURITY. 9 1 

muning with us there and calling us to take up our two- 
fold birthright as man — the mastery over visible 
things, and above all the master}- over our own bodies, 
actions, thoughts — and the power, always growing, of 
a mysterious communion with the invisible. 



LVII. 

"Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? 
Even by ruling himself after Thy word." The question 
of questions this, at the most critical time in his life for 
every child of Adam who ever grew to manhood on the 
face of our planet ; and so far as human experience has 
yet gone, the answer of answers. Other answers have 
been, indeed, forthcoming at all times, and never surely 
in greater number or stranger guise than at the present 
time : " Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his 
way ? " Even by ruling himself in the faith " that human 
life will become more beautiful and more noble in the 
future than in the past." This will be found enough 
"to stimulate the forces of the will, and purify the soul 
from base passion " urge, with a zeal and ability of 
which every Christian must desire to speak with deep 
respect, more than one school of our nineteenth century 
moralists. 

" Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way ? " 
Even by ruling himself on the faith ''that it is probable 
that God exists, and that death is not the end of life ; " 



92 TRUE MANLINESS. 

or again, " that this is the only world of which we have 
any knowledge at all." Either of these creeds, says the 
philosopher of the clubs, if held distinctly as a dogma 
and consistently acted on, will be found " capable of 
producing results on an astonishing scale." So one 
would think, but scarcely in the direction of personal 
holiness, or energy. Meantime, the answer of the 
Hebrew psalmist, three thousand years old, or there- 
abouts, has gone straight to the heart of many genera- 
tions, and I take it will scarcely care to make way for 
any solution likely to occur to modern science or phil- 
osophy. Yes, he who has the word of the living God 
to rule himself by — who can fall back on the strength 
of Him who has had the victory over the world, the 
flesh and the devil — may even in this strange dis- 
jointed time of ours carry his manhood pure and un- 
sullied through the death-grips to which he must come 
with " the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the 
pride of life." He who will take the world, the flesh, 
and the devil by the throat in his own strength, will find 
them shrewd wrestlers. Well for him if he escape with 
the stain of the falls which he is too sure to get, and 
can rise up still a man, though beaten and shamed, to 
meet the same foes in new shapes in his later years. 
New shapes, and ever more vile, as the years run on : 
" Three sorts of men my soul hateth," says the son of 
Sirach, " a poor man that is proud, a rich man that is a 
liar, and an old adulterer that doateth." 



PATIENCE. 93 

We may believe the Gospel history to be a fable, but 
who amongst us can deny the fact that each son of man 
has to go forth into the wilderness — for us " the wil- 
derness of the wide world in an atheistic century " — 
and there do battle with the tempter as soon as the 
whisper has come in his ear : " Thou too art a man ; eat 
freelv. All these things will I sdve thee." 



LVIII. 

" How is it that ye sought me ? Wist ye not that I 
must be in my Father's courts, about his busmess ? " 

Full of this new question and great wonder, Christ 
went home to the village in Galilee with his parents, 
and was subject to them ; and the curtain falls for us on 
his boyhood and youth and early manhood. But as 
nothing but what is most important, and necessary for 
understanding all of his life which we need for our own 
growth into his likeness, is told in these simple gospel 
narratives, it would seem that this vivid light is thrown 
on that first visit to Jerusalem because it was the crisis 
in our Lord's early life which bears most directly on his 
work for our race. If so, we must, I think, allow that 
the question, once fairly presented to the boy's mind, 
would never again have left it. Day by day it would 
have been coming back with increasing insistency, gath- 
ering power and weight. And as he submitted it clay by 
day to the God whom prophet and Psalmist had taught 



94 TRUE MANLINESS. 

every child of the nation to look upon as " about his 
path and about his bed, and knowing every thought of 
his heart," the consciousness must have gained strength 
and power. As the habit of self-surrender and simple 
obedience to the voice within grew more perfect, and 
more a part of his very being, the call must have sound- 
ed more and more clearly. 

And, as he was in all things tempted like as we are, 
again and again must his human nature have shrunk 
back and tried every way of escape from this task, the 
call to which was haunting him • while every succeeding 
month and year of life must have disclosed to him more 
and more of its peril and its hopelessness, as well as of 
its majesty. 

We have, then, to picture to ourselves this struggle 
and discipline going on for eighteen years — the call 
sounding continually in his ears, and the boy, the youth, 
the strong man, each in turn solicited by the special 
temptations of his age, and rising clear above them 
through the strength of perfect obedience, the strength 
which comes from the daily fulfilment of daily duties — 
that " strength in the Lord " which St. Paul holds up to 
us as possible for every human being. Think over this 
long probation, and satisfy yourselves whether it is easy, 
whether it is possible to form any higher ideal of perfect 
manliness. 

And without any morbid curiosity, and I think with 
profit, we may follow out the thoughts which this long 



PATIENCE. 95 

period of quiet suggests. We know from the evangelists 
only this, that he remained in obscurity in a retired 
village of Galilee, and subject to his reputed father and 
mother. That he also remained in great seclusion while 
living the simple peasant life of Nazareth we may infer 
from the surprise, not unmixed with anger and alarm, 
of his own family, when, after his baptism, he began his 
public career amongst them. And yet, on that day, 
when he rose to speak in the synagogue, it is clear that 
the act was one which commended itself in the first in- 
stance to his family and neighbors. The eyes of all 
present were at once fixed on him as on one who might 
be expected to stand in the scribe's place, from whom 
they might learn something, a man who had a right to 
speak. 

Indeed, it is impossible to suppose that he could have 
lived in their midst from childhood to full manhood with- 
out attracting the attention, and stirring many question- 
ings in the minds, of all those with whom he was brought 
into contact. The stories in the Apocryphal Gospels of 
the exercise of miraculous powers by Christ as a child 
and boy may be wholly disregarded ; but we may be 
sure that such a life as his, though lived in the utmost 
possible seclusion, must have impressed every one with 
whom he came in contact, from the scribe who taught 
the Scriptures in Nazareth to the children who sat by his 
side to learn, or met him by chance in the vineyards or 
on the hill-sides. That he was diligent in using such 



96 TRUE MANLINESS. 

means for study as were within his reach, if it needed 
proof, would appear from his perfect familiarity with the 
laws and history of his country at the opening of his 
ministry. And the mysterious story of the crisis imme- 
diately following his baptism, in which he wrestled, as it 
were, face to face with the tempter and betrayer of man- 
kind, indicates to us the nature of the daily battle which 
he must have been waging, from his earliest infancy, or 
at any rate ever since his first visit to Jerusalem. No 
one can suppose for a moment that the trial came on 
him for the first time after the great prophet to whom 
all the nation were flocking had owned him as the com- 
ing Christ. That recognition removed, indeed, the last 
doubt from his mind, and gave him the signal for which 
he had been patiently waiting, that the time was come 
and he must set forth from his retirement. But the as- 
surance that the call would come at some time must 
have been growing on him in all those years, and so 
when he does come he is perfectly prepared. 

In his first public discourse in the synagogue of Naza- 
reth we find him at once announcing the fulfilment of the 
hopes which all around him were cherishing. He pro- 
claims, without any preface or hesitation, with the most 
perfect directness and confidence, the full gospel of the 
kingdom of heaven: "The time is fulfilled, and the 
kingdom of God is at hand." He takes for the text of 
his first discourse the passage in Isaiah : " The Spirit of 
the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to 



PATIENCE. 97 

preach the gospel to the poor ; he hath sent me to heal 
the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captive, 
the recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them 
that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the 
Lord," and proceeds to expound how " this day is this 
scripture fulfilled in your ears." And within the next 
few days he delivers his Sermon on the Mount, of which 
we have the full record, and in which we find the mean- 
ing, and character, and principles of the kingdom laid 
down once and for all. Mark, that there is no hesitation, 
no ambiguity, no doubt as to who he is, or what message 
he has to deliver. " I have not come to destroy but to 
fulfil the law which my Father and your Father has 
given you, and which you have misunderstood. This 
which I am now unfolding to you is the meaning of that 
law, this is the will of my Father who is in heaven." 

Thus he springs at once, as it were, full-armed into 
the arena ; and it is this thorough mastery of his own 
meaning and position from the first — this thorough in- 
sight into what he has to do, and the means by which it 
is to be done — upon which we should fix our thoughts 
if we want to understand, or to get any notion at all of, 
what must have been the training of those eighteen 
years. 

How had this perfect insight and confidence been 
reached ? " This young peasant, preaching from a boat 
or on a hill-side, sweeps aside at once the traditions of 
our most learned doctors, telling us that this, which we 



98 TRUE MANLINESS. 

and our fathers have been taught, is not what the God 
of Israel intended in these commandments of his ; but 
that he, this young man, can tell us what God did really 
intend. He assumes to speak to us as one having 
authority. Who gave him this authority?" These, we 
know, are the kind of questionings with which Christ was 
met at once, and over and over again. And they are 
most natural and necessary questionings, and must have 
occurred to himself again and again, and been answered 
by him to himself, before he could have stood up to 
proclaim with the tone of absolute authority his good 
news to the village congregations in Galilee, or the 
crowds on the Mount, or by the lake. 

Who gave thee this authority ? We can only rever- 
entially, and at a distance, picture to ourselves the dis- 
cipline and struggles by which the answer was reached, 
which enabled him to go out without the slightest 
faltering or misgiving, and deliver his full and astound- 
ing message, the moment the sign came that the time 
had come, and that it was indeed he to whom the task 
was intrusted. 

But the lines of that discipline, which in a measure is 
also the discipline of every one of us, are clearly enough 
indicated for us in the story of the temptation. 

In every subtle form this question must have been 
meeting the maturing Christ day after day. Art thou 
indeed the Son of God who is said to be coming to re- 
deem this enslaved and degraded people, and with and 



PATIENCE. 99 

beside them all the kingdoms of the world ? Even if 
these prophets have not been dreaming and doting, art 
not thou at least dreaming and doting ? At any rate if 
that is your claim put it to some test. Satisfy yourself, 
and show us, while satisfying yourself, some proof of 
your title, which we, too, can recognize. Here are all 
these material, visible things which, if your claim be 
true, must be subject to you. Show us your power over 
some of them — the meanest, if you will, the common 
food which keeps men alive. There are spiritual invis- 
ible forces too, which are supposed to be the ministers 
of God, and should therefore be under the control of his 
Son — give us some sign that you can guide or govern 
the least of them. Why pause or delay ? Is the burden 
growing lighter on this people ? Is the Roman getting 
year by year less insolent, the publican less fraudulent 
and exacting, the Pharisees and rulers less godless, the 
people, your own kin amongst them, less degraded and 
less brutal ? You are a grown man, with the full powers 
of a man at any rate. Why are you idling here when 
your Father's work (if God be your Father) lies broad- 
cast on every side, and no man standing forth to " the 
help of the Lord against the mighty," as our old seers 
used to rave ? 

I hope I may have been able to indicate to you, how- 
ever imperfectly, the line of thought which will enable 
each of you for yourselves to follow out and realize, 
more or less, the power and manliness of the character 



ioo TRUE MANLINESS. 

of Christ implied in this patient waiting in obscurity and 
doubt through the years when most men are at full 
stretch — waiting for the call which shall convince him 
that the voice within has not been a lying voice — and 
meantime making himself all that God meant him to be, 
without haste and without misgiving. 

LIX. 

In Christ, after the discipline of long-waiting years, 
there was no ambition, no self-delusion. He had meas- 
ured the way, and counted the cost, of lifting his own 
people and the world out of bondage to visible things 
and false gods, and bringing them to the only Father of 
their spirits, into the true kingdom of their God. He 
must, indeed, have been well enough aware how infinite- 
ly more fit for the task he himself was than any of his 
own brethren in the flesh, with whom he was living day by 
day, or of the men of Nazareth with whom he had been 
brought up. But he knew also that the same voice 
which had been speaking to him, the same wisdom which 
had been training him, must have been speaking to and 
training other humble and brave souls, wherever there 
were open hearts and ears, in the whole Jewish nation. 
As the humblest and most guileless of men, he could 
not have assumed that no other Israelite had been able 
to render that perfect obedience of which he was himself 
conscious. And so he may well have hurried to the 



PATIENCE. 101 

Jordan in the hope of finding there, in this prophet of 
the wilderness, " Him who should come," the Messiah, 
the great deliverer — and of enlisting under his banner, 
and rendering him true and loyal service, in the belief 
that, after all, he himself might only be intended to aid 
and hold up the hands of a greater than himself. For 
we must remember that Christ could not have heard be- 
fore he came to Bethabara that John had disclaimed the 
great title. It was not till the very clay before his own 
arrival that the Baptist had told the questioners from 
Jerusalem, " I am not he." 

But if any such thought had crossed his mind, or hope 
filled his heart, on the way to the Baptist, it was soon 
dispelled, and he, left again in his own loneliness, now 
more clearly than ever before, face to face with the task, 
before which even the Son of God, appointed to it be- 
fore the world was, might well quail, as it confronted 
him in his frail human body. For John recognizes him, 
singles him out at once, proclaims to the bystanders, 
" This is he ! Behold the Lamb of God ! This is he 
who shall baptize with the fire of God's own Spirit. 
Here is the deliverer whom all our prophets have fore- 
told." And by a mysterious outward sign, as well as 
by the witness in his own heart and conscience, Christ 
is at once assured of the truth of the Baptist's words — 
that it is indeed he himself and no other, and that his 
time has surely come. 

That he now thoroughly realized the fact for the first 



io2 TRUE MANLINESS. 

time, and was startled and severely tried by the con- 
firmation of what he must have felt for years to be 
probable, is not only what we should look for from our 
own experiences, but seems the true inference from the 
gospel narratives. For, although as soon as the full 
truth breaks upon him he accepts the mission and work 
to which God is calling him, and speaks with authority 
to the Baptist, " Suffer it to be so now," yet the imme- 
diate effect of the call is to drive him away into the 
wilderness, there in the deepest solitude to think over 
once again, and for the last time to wrestle with and 
master the tremendous disclosure. 



LX. 

In following the life of Christ so far as we have any 
materials, we have found one main characteristic to be 
patience — a resolute waiting on God's mind. I have 
asked you to test, in every way you can, whether this 
kind of patience does not constitute the highest ideal we 
can form of human conduct, is not in fact the noblest 
type of true manliness. Pursue the same method as to 
the isolated section of that life, the temptation, which I 
readily admit has much in it that we cannot understand. 
But take the story simply as you find it (which is the 
only honest method, unless you pass it by altogether, 
which would be cowardly) and see whether you can de- 
tect any weakness, any flaw in the perfect manliness of 



PATIENCE. 103 

Christ under the strain of which it speaks — whether 
he does not here also realize for us the most perfect type 
of manliness in times of solitary and critical trial. Spare 
no pains, suppress no doubt, only be honest with the 
story, and with your own conscience. 

There is scarcely any life of first-rate importance to the 
world in which we do not find a crisis corresponding to 
this, but the nearest parallel must be sought amongst 
those men, the greatest of all kind, who have founded 
or recast one of the great religions of the world. Of 
these (if we except the greatest of all, Moses) Moham- 
med is the only one of whose call we know enough to 
speak. Whatever we may think of him and the religion 
he founded, we shall all probably admit that he was at 
any rate a man of the rarest courage. In his case too 
it is only at the end of long and solitary vigils in the 
desert that the vision comes which seals him for his 
work. The silver roll is unfolded before his eyes, and 
he who holds it bids him read therein the decree of God. 
and tells him, " Thou art the prophet of God, and I his 
angel." 

He is unmanned by the vision, and flies trembling to 
his wife, whose brave and loving counsel, and those of 
his friends and first disciples, scarcely keep him from 
despair and suicide. 

I would not press the parallel further than to remark 
that Christ came out of the temptation with no human 
aid, having trod the wine-press alone, serene and reso- 



io 4 TRUE MANLINESS. 

lute from that moment for the work to which God had 
called him. 

LXI. 

The strongest and most generous natures are always 
fondest of those who lean on them. 



LXII. 

How utterly inadequate must be any knowledge of a 
human being which does not get beneath the surface ? 
How difficult to do so to any good purpose ! For that 
"inner," or " eternal," or " religious " life (call it which 
you will, they all mean the same thing) is so entirely a 
matter between each human soul and God, is at best so 
feebly and imperfectly expressed by the outer life. 

There are none of us but must be living two lives — 
and the sooner we come to recognize the fact clearly 
the better for us — the one life in the outward material 
world, in contact with the things which we can see, and 
taste, and handle, which are always changing and pass- 
ing away ; the other in the invisible, in contact with the 
unseen ; with that which does not change or pass 
away — which is the same yesterday, to-day, and for- 
ever. The former life you must share with others, with 
your family, your friends, with everyone you meet in 
business or pleasure. The latter you must live alone, 



HUMAN NATURE. 105 

in the solitude of your own inmost being, if you can 
find no spirit there communing with yours — in the 
presence of, and in communion with, the Father of your 
spirit, if you are willing to recognize that presence. 
The one life will no doubt always be the visible expres- 
sion of the other ; just as the body is the garment in 
which the real man is clothed for his sojourn in time. 
But the expression is often little more than a shadow, 
unsatisfying, misleading. One of our greatest English 
poets has written : 

" The one remains, the many change and pass, 
Heaven's light forever shines, earth's shadows fly. 
Time, like a dome of many-colored glass, 
Stains the bright radiance of eternity, 
Until death tramples it to fragments." 

And so you and I are living now under the dome of 
many-colored glass, and shall live as long as we remain 
in these bodies, a temporal and an eternal life — "the 
next world," which too many of our teachers speak of 
as a place which we shall first enter after death, being 
in fact " next " only in the truest sense of the word ; 
namely, that it is nearest to us now. The dome of time 
can do nothing more (if we even allow it to do that) 
than partially to conceal from us the light which is al- 
ways there, beneath, around, above us. 

" The outer life of the devout man," it has been well 
said, " should be thoroughly attractive to others. He 
would be simple, honest, straightforward, unpretending, 



io6 "RUE MANLINESS. 

gentle, kindly; — his conversation cheerful and sensi- 
ble ; he would be ready to share in all blameless mirth, 
indulgent to all save sin." 



LXIII. 

In a noisy and confused time like ours, it does seem 
to me that most of us have need to be reminded of, and 
will be the better for bearing in mind, the reserve of 
♦strength and power which lies quietly at the nation's 
call, outside the whirl and din of public and fashion- 
able life, and entirely ignored in the columns of the 
daily press. There are thousands of Englishmen of 
high culture, high courage, high principle, who are living 
their own quiet lives in every corner of the kingdom, 
from John o' Groat's to the Land's-End, bringing up 
their families in the love of God and their neighbor, and 
keeping the atmosphere around them clean, and pure, 
and strong, by their example — men who would come 
to the front, and might be relied on, in any serious 
national crisis. 

One is too apt to fancy, from the photographs of the 
nation's life which one gets day by day, that the old 
ship has lost the ballast which has stood her in such 
good stead for a thousand years, and is rolling more and 
more helplessly, in a gale which shows no sign of abat- 
ing, for her or any other national vessel, until at last 
she must roll over and founder. But it is not so. Eng- 



HUMAN NATURE. 107 

iand is in less stress, and in better trim, than she has 
been in many a stiifer gale. 

The real fact is, that nations, and the families of 
which nations are composed, make no parade or fuss 
over that part of their affairs which is going right. Na- 
tional life depends on home life, and foreign critics are 
inclined to take the chronicles of our Divorce Court as 
a test by which to judge the standard of our home-life, 
like the old gentleman who always spelt through the 
police reports to see " what people were about." An 
acquaintance, however, with any average English neigh- 
borhood, or any dozen English families taken at random, 
ought to be sufficient to re-assure the faint-hearted, and 
to satisfy them that (to use the good old formula) the 
Lord has much work yet for the nation to do, and the 
national manliness and godliness left to do it all, not- 
withstanding superficial appearances. 

LXIV. 

If the angel Gabriel were to come down from heaven, 
and head a successful rise against the most abominable 
and unrighteous vested interest which this poor world 
groans under, he would most certainly lose his character 
for many years, probably for centuries, not only with 
upholders of said vested interest, but with the respecta- 
ble mass of the people whom he had delivered. They 
wouldn't ask him to dinner, or let their names appear 



108 TRUE MANLINESS. 

with his in the papers ; they would be very careful how 
they spoke of him in the Palaver, or at their clubs. 
What can we expect, then, when we have only poor, 
gallant, blundering men like Kossuth, Garibaldi, Maz- 
zini, and righteous causes do not always triumph in 
their hands ; men who have holes enough in their armor, 
God knows, easy to be hit by respectabilities sitting in 
their lounging-chairs, and having large balances at their 
bankers ? 

But you who only want to have your heads set straight 
to take the right side, bear in mind that majorities, es- 
pecially respectable ones, are nine times out of ten in 
the wrong ; and that if you see a man or boy striving 
earnestly on the weak side, however wrong-headed or 
blundering he may be, you are not to go and join the 
cry against him. If you can't join him and help him, 
and make him wiser, at any rate remember that he has 
found something in the world which he will fight and 
suffer for, which is just what you have got to do for 
yourselves ; and so think and speak of him tenderly. 



LXV. 

If you have not already felt it, you will assuredly 
feel, that your lot is cast in a world which longs for 
nothing so much as to succeed in shaking off all belief 
in anything which cannot be tested by the senses, and 
gauged and measured by the intellect, as the trappings 



HUMAN NATURE. 109 

of a worn-out superstition. Men have been trying, so 
runs the new gospel, to live by faith, and not by sight, 
ever since there is any record at all of their lives ; and 
so they have had to manufacture for themselves the 
faiths they were to live by. What is called the life of 
the soul or spirit, and the life of the understanding, have 
been in conflict all this time, and the one has always 
been gaining on the other. Stronghold after strong- 
hold has fallen till it is clear almost to demonstration 
that there will soon be no place left for that which was 
once deemed all-powerful. The spiritual life can no 
longer be led honestly. Man has no knowledge of the 
invisible on which he can build. Let him own the truth 
and turn to that upon which he can build safely — the 
world of matter, his knowledge of which is always grow- 
ing ; and be content with the things he can see and 
taste and handle. Those who are telling you still in 
this time that your life can and ought to be lived in 
daily communion with the unseen — that so only you 
can loyally control the visible — are either wilfully de- 
ceiving you or are dreamers and visionaries. 

So the high priests of the new gospel teach, and their 
teaching echoes through our literature, and colors the 
life of the streets and markets in a thousand ways ; and 
a mammon-ridden generation, longing to be rid of what 
they hope are only certain old and clumsy supersti- 
tions — which they try to believe injurious to others, and 
are quite sure make them uneasy in their own efforts to 



no TRUE MANLINESS. 

eat, drink, and be merry — applauds as openly as it dare, 
and hopes soon to see the millennium of the flesh-pots 
publicly declared and recognized. 

Against which, wherever you may encounter them, 
that you may be ready and able to stand fast, is the hope 
and prayer of many anxious hearts ; in a time, charged 
on every side with signs of the passing away of old 
things, such as have not been seen above the horizon 
in Christendom since Luther nailed his protest on the 
church-door of a German village. 



LXVI. 

The gospel of work is a true gospel, though not the 
only one, or the highest, and has been preached in our 
day by great teachers. Listen, for instance, to the ring 
of it in the rugged and incisive words of one of our 
strongest poets : 

" That low man seeks a little thing to do, 

Sees it and does it. 
This high man, with a great thing to pursue, 

Dies ere he knows it. 
That low man goes on adding one to one, 

His hundreds soon hit. 
This high man aiming at a million, 

Misses a unit." 

This sounds like a deliberate attack on the idealist, a 



HUMAN NA TURE. 1 1 1 

direct preference of low to high aims and standards, of 
the seen to the unseen. It is in reality only a whole- 
some warning against aiming at any ideal by wrong 
methods, though the use of the words " low " and 
" high " is no doubt likely to mislead. The true ideal- 
ist has no- quarrel with the lesson of these lines ; in- 
deed, he would be glad to see them written on one of 
the door-posts of every great school, if only they were 
ballasted on the other by George Herbert's quaint and 
deeper wisdom : 

" Pitch thy behavior low, thy projects high, 

So sbalt thou humble and magnanimous be. 

Sink not in spirit : who aimeth at the sky 

Shoots higher much than he that means a tree." 

Both sayings are true, and worth carrying in your 
minds as part of their permanent furniture, and you will 
find that they will live there very peaceably side by side. 



LXVII. 

The consciousness of the darkness in one and around 
one brings the longing for light. And then the light 
dawns ; through mist and fog, perhaps, but enough to 
pick one's way by. 



ii2 TRUE MANLINESS. 

LXVIII. 

It is a strange, blind sort of world we are in, with lots 
of blind alleys, down which we go blundering in the fog 
after some seedy gaslight, which we take for the sun till 
we run against the wall at the end, and find out that the 
light is a gaslight, and that there's no thoroughfare. 
But for all that, one does get on. You get to know the 
sun's light better and better, and to keep out of the 
blind alleys ; and I am surer and surer every day that 
there's always sunlight enough for every honest fellow, 
and a good sound road under his feet, if he will only 
step out on it. 

LXIX. 

We all have to learn, in one way or another, that 
neither men nor boys get second chances in this world. 
We all get new chances till the end of our lives, but not 
second chances in the same set of circumstances ; and 
the great difference between one person and another is, 
how he takes hold of and uses his first chance, and 
how he takes his fall if it is scored against him. 



LXX. 

You will all find, if you haven't found it out already, 
that a time comes in every human friendship when you 



HUMAN NATUfZE. 113 

must go down into the depths of yourself, and lay bare 
what is there to your friend, and wait in fear for his an- 
swer. A few moments may do it ; and it may be that 
you never do it but once. But done it must be, if the 
friendship is to be worth the name. You must find out 
what is there, at the very root and bottom of one anoth- 
er's hearts ; and if you are at one there, nothing on 
earth can, or at least ought, to sunder you. 

LXXI. 

It is only through our mysterious human relationships 
— through the love and tenderness and purity of 
mothers and sisters and wives — through the strength 
and courage and wisdom of fathers and brothers and 
teachers — that we can come to the knowledge of Him 
in whom alone the love, and the tenderness, and the 
purity, and the strength, and the courage, and the wis- 
dom of all these dwell for ever and ever in perfect 
fulness. 

LXXIL 

Almost nightly, for years, Tom and Arthur, and by 
degrees East occasionally, and sometimes one, some- 
times another of their friends, read a chapter of the 
Bible together, and talked it over afterwards. Tom was 
at first utterly astonished, and almost shocked, at the 



ii 4 TRUE MANLINESS. 

sort of way in which Arthur read the ' book and talked 
about the men and women whose lives are there told. 
The first night they happened to fall on the chapters 
about the famine in Egypt, and Arthur began talking 
about Joseph as if he were a living statesman ; just as 
he might have talked about Lord Grey and the Reform 
Bill ; only that they were much more living realities to 
him. The book was to him, Tom saw, the most vivid 
and delightful history of real people, who might do 
right or wrong, just like any one who was walking about 
Rugby — the doctor, or the masters, or the sixth-form 
boys. But the atmosphere soon passed off, the scales 
seemed to drop from his eyes, and the book became at 
once and forever to him the great human and divine 
book, and the men and women, whom he had looked 
upon as something quite different from himself, became 
his friends and counsellors. 

Arthur, Tom, and East were together one night, and 
read the story of Naaman coming to Elisha to be cured 
of his leprosy. When the chapter was finished, Tom 
shut his Bible with a slap. 

" I can't stand that fellow Naaman," said he, " after 
what he'd seen and felt, going back again and bowing 
himself down in the house of Rimmon, because his ef- 
feminate scoundrel of a master did it. I wonder Elisha 
took the trouble to heal him. How he must have de- 
spised him." 

" Yes, there you go off as usual, with a shell on your 



HUMAN NATURE. 115 

head," struck in East, who always took the opposite 
side to Tom : half from love of argument, half from 
conviction. " How do you know he didn't think better 
of it ? how do you know his master was a scoundrel ? 
His letter don't look like it, and the book don't say so." 

" I don't care," rejoined Tom ; " why did Naaman 
talk about bowing down, then, if he didn't mean to do 
it ? He wasn't likely to get more in earnest when he 
got back to Court, and away from the Prophet." 

" Well, but, Tom," said Arthur, " look what Elisha 
says to him, ' Go in peace.' He wouldn't have said that 
if Naaman had been in the wrong." 

" I don't see that that means more than saying, 
' You're not the man I took you for.' " 

" No, no, that won't do at all," said East; " read the 
words fairly, and take men as you find them. I like 
Naaman, and think he was a very fine fellow." 

" I don't," said Tom, positively. 

" Well, I think East is right," said Arthur ; " I can't 
see but what it's right to do the best you can, though it 
mayn't be the best absolutely. Every man isn't born to 
be a martyr." 

" Of course, of course," said East ; " but he's on one 
of his pet hobbies. How often have I told you, Tom, 
that you must drive a nail where it'll go ? " 

"And how often have I told you," rejoined Tom, 
" that it'll always go where you want, if you only stick 



n6 TRUE MANLINESS. 

to it and hit hard enough ? I hate half-measures and 
compromises." 

" Yes, he's a whole-hog man, is Tom. Must have 
the whole animal, hair and teeth, claws and tail," 
laughed East. " Sooner have no bread any day than 
half a loaf." 

" I don't know," said Arthur, " it's rather puzzling ; 
but ain't most right things got by proper compromises, 
I mean where the principle isn't given up ? " 

" That's not the point," said Tom ; " I don't object 
to a compromise, where you don't give up your prin- 
ciple." 

" Not you," said East laughingly. " I know him of 
old, Arthur, and you'll find him out some day. There 
isn't such a reasonable fellow in the world to hear him 
talk. He never wants anything but what's right and 
fair ; only when you come to settle what's right and 
fair, it's everything that he wants, and nothing that you 
want. Give me the Brown compromise when I'm on 
his side." 

"Now, Harry," said Tom, "no more chaff — I'm 
serious. Look here — this is what makes my blood 
tingle;" and he turned over the pages of his Bible and 
read : " Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered and 
said to the king, ' O Nebuchadnezzar, we are not care- 
ful to answer thee in this matter. If it be so, our God 
whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning, 
fiery furnace, and He will deliver us out of thine hand, 



DEATH. 117 

O king. But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that 
we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden im- 
age which thou hast set up.' " He read the last verse 
twice, emphasizing the nots, and dwelling on them as if 
they gave him actual pleasure and were hard to part 
with. 

They were silent a minute, and then Arthur said, 
" Yes, that's a glorious story, but it don't prove your 
point, Tom, I think. There are times when there is 
only one way, and that the highest, and then the men 
are found to stand in the breach." 

" There's always a highest way, and it's always the 
right one," said Tom. " How many times has the Doc- 
tor told us that in his sermons in the last year I should 
like to know ! " 

"Well, you ain't going to convince us — is he Arthur ? 
No Brown compromise to-night," said East, looking at 
his watch. " But it's past eight, and we must go to 
first lesson." 

So they took down their books and fell to work ; but 
Arthur didn't forget, and thought long and often over 
the conversation. 



LXXIII. 

"Tom," said Arthur " I've had such strange thoughts 
about death lately. I've never told a soul of them, not 
even my mother. Sometimes, I think they're wrong, 



i :8 TRUE MANLINESS. 

but, do you know I don't think in my heart I could be 
sorry at the death of any of my friends." 

Tom was taken quite aback. 

" What in the world is the young un after now ? " 
thought he ; " I've swallowed a good many of his 
crotchets, but this altogether beats me. He can't be 
quite right in his head." 

He didn't want to say a word, and shifted about un- 
easily in the dark ; however, Arthur seemed to be wait- 
ing for an answer, so at last he said, " I don't think I 
quite see what you mean, Geordie. One's told so often 
to think about death, that I've tried it on sometimes, es- 
pecially this last week. But we won't talk of it now. 
I'd better go — you're getting tired, and I shall do you 
harm." 

" No, no, indeed — I ain't Tom ; you must stop till 
nine, there's only twenty minutes. I've settled you 
must stop till nine. And oh ! do let me talk to you — 
I must talk to you. I see it's just as I feared. You 
think I'm half-mad — don't you now ? " 

" Well, I did think it odd what you said, Geordie, as 
you ask me." 

Arthur paused a moment, and then said quickly, "I'll 
tell you how it all happened. At first, when I was sent 
to the sick-room, and found I had really got the fever, I 
was terribly frightened. I thought I should die, and I 
could not face it for a moment. I don't think it was 
sheer cowardice at first, but I thought how hard it was 



DEATH. 119 

to be taken away from my mother and sisters, and you 
all, just as I was beginning to see my way to many 
tilings, and to feel that I might be a man and do a man's 
work. To die without having fought and worked, and 
given one's life away, was too hard to bear. I got ter- 
ribly impatient, and accused God of injustice, and strove 
to justify myself ; and the harder I strove, the deeper I 
sank. Then the image of my dear father often came 
across me, but I turned from it. Whenever it came, a 
heavy numbing throb seemed to take hold of my heart, 
and say ' Dead — dead, dead.' And I cried out, ' The 
living, the living shall praise thee O God ; the dead 
cannot praise Thee. There is no work in the grave ; in 
the night no man can work. But I can work. I can do 
great things. I will do great things. Why wilt Thou 
slay me.' And so I struggled and plunged, deeper and 
deeper, and went down into a living black tomb. I was 
alone there, with no power to stir or think ; along with 
myself ; beyond the reach of all human fellowship ; be- 
yond Christ's reach, I thought, in my nightmare. You 
who are brave and bright and strong, can have no idea 
of that agony. Pray to God you never may. Pray as 
for your life." 

Arthur stopped — from exhaustion, Tom thought ; but 
what between his fear lest Arthur should hurt himself, 
his awe, and longing for him to go on, he couldn't ask, 
or stir to help him. Presently he went on, but quite 
calm and slow : 



120 TRUE MANLINESS. 

" I don't know how long I was in that state. For 
more than a day, I know ; for I was quite conscious, and 
lived my outer life all the time, and took my medicines, 
and spoke to my mother, and heard what they said. 
But I didn't take much note of time ; I thought time 
was over for me, and that that tomb was what was be- 
yond. Well, on last Sunday morning, as I seemed to 
lie in that tomb, alone, as I thought, for ever and ever, 
the black, dead wall was cleft in two, and I was caught 
up and borne through into the light by some great 
power, some living, mighty spirit. Tom, do you remem- 
ber the living creatures and the wheels in Ezekiel ? It 
was just like that : ' when they went I heard the noise 
of their wings, like the noise of great waters, as the 
voice of the Almighty, the voice of speech, as the noise 
of an host ; when they stood they let down their wings ' 
— ' and they went every one straight forward ; whither 
the spirit was to go they went, and they turned not 
when they went.' And we rushed through the bright 
air, which was full of myriads of living creatures, and 
paused on the brink of a great river. And the power 
held me up, and I knew that great river was the grave, 
and death dwelt there ; but not the death I had met in 
the black tomb — that I felt was gone forever. For on 
the other bank of the great river I saw men and women 
and children rising up pure and bright, and the tears 
were wiped from their eyes, and they put on glory and 
strength, and all weariness and pain fell away. And 



DEATH. 121 

beyond were a multitude which no man could number, 
and they worked at some great work • and they who rose 
from the river went on and joined them in the work. 
They all worked, and each worked in a different way, 
but all at the same work. And I saw there my father, 
and the men in the old town whom I knew when I was 
a child ; many a hard, stern man, who never came to 
church, and whom they called atheist and infidel. 
There they were, side by side with my father, whom I 
had seen toil and die for them, and women and little 
children, and the seal was on the foreheads of all. And 
I longed to see what the work was, and could not ; so I 
tried to plunge in the river, for I thought I would join 
them, but I could not. Then I looked about to see how 
they got into the river. And this I could not see, but I 
saw myriads on this side, and they too worked, and I 
knew that it was the same work ; and the same seal was 
on their foreheads. And though I saw there was toil 
and anguish in the work of these, and that most that 
were working were blind and feeble, yet I longed no 
more to plunge into the river, but more and more to 
know what the work was. And as I looked I saw my 
mother and my sisters, and I saw the Doctor, and you, 
Tom, and hundreds more whom I knew ; and at last I 
saw myself, too, and I was toiling and doing ever so lit- 
tle a piece of the great work. Then it all melted away, 
and the power left me, and as it left me I thought I 
heard a voice say, ' The vision is for an appointed time ; 



122 TRUE MANLINESS. 

though it tarry, wait for it, for in the end it shall speak 
and not lie, it shall surely come, it shall not tarry.' It 
was early morning I know, then, it was so quiet and 
cool, and my mother was fast asleep in the chair by my 
bedside ; but it wasn't only a dream of mine. I know 
it wasn't a dream. Then I fell into a deep sleep, and 
only woke after afternoon chapel ; and the Doctor came 
and gave me the sacrament. I told him and my mother 
I should get well — I knew I should ; but I couldn't 
tell them why. Tom," said Arthur, gently, after an- 
other minute, " do you see why I could not grieve now to 
see my dearest friend die? It can't be — it isn't, all 
fever or illness. God would never have let me see it so 
clear if it wasn't true. I don't understand it all yet — 
it will take me my life and longer to do that — to find 
out what the work is." 

LXXIV. 

" Hullo, Brown ! here's something for you," called 
out the reading man. " Why, your old master, Arnold 
of Rugby, is dead." 

Tom's hand stopped half-way in his cast, and his line 
and flies went all tangling round and round his fishing- 
rod ; you might have knocked him over with a feather. 

Neither of his companions took any notice of him, 
luckily ; and with a violent effort he set to work me- 
chanically to disentangle his line. He felt completely 



DEATH. 123 

carried off his moral and intellectual legs, as if he had 
lost his standing-point in the invisible world. Besides 
which, the deep loving loyalty he felt for his old leader 
made the shock intensely painful. It was the first great 
wrench of his life, the first gap which the angel Death 
had made in his circle, and he felt numbed, and beaten 
down, and spiritless. Well, well ! I believe it was good 
for him and for many others in like case ; who had to 
learn by that loss, that the soul of man cannot stand or 
lean upon any human prop, however strong, and wise, 
and good ; but that He upon whom alone it can stand 
and lean will knock away all such props in His own 
wise and merciful way, until there is no ground or stay 
left but Himself, the Rock of Ages, upon whom alone 
a sure foundation for every soul of man is laid. 



LXXV. 

At the school-gates Tom made a dead pause ; there 
was not a soul in the quadrangle — all was lonely, and 
silent, and sad. So with another effort he strode 
through the quadrangle, and into the school-house 
offices. 

He found the little matron in her room in deep 
mourning ; shook her hand, tried to talk, and moved 
nervously about ; she was evidently thinking of the same 
subject as he, but he couldn't begin talking. 



i2 4 TRUE MANLINESS. 

" Where shall I find Thomas ? " said he at last, get- 
ting desperate. 

" In the servants' hall, I think, sir. But won't you 
take anything ? " said the matron looking rather disap- 
pointed. 

"No, thank you," said he, and strode off again to 
find the old verger, who was sitting in his little den as 
of old puzzling over hieroglyphics. 

He looked up through his spectacles, as Tom seized 
his hand and wrung it. 

" Ah ! you've heard all about it, sir, I see," said he. 

Tom nodded, and then sat down on the shoe-board, 
while the old man told his tale, and wiped his spec- 
tacles, and fairly flowed over with quaint, homely, honest 
sorrow. 

By the time he had done, Tom felt much better. 

" Where is he buried, Thomas ? " said he at last. 

" Under the altar in the chapel, sir," answered 
Thomas. " You'd like to have the key, I dare say." 

" Thank you, Thomas. Yes, I should very much." 
And the old man fumbled among his bunch, and then 
got up as though he would go with him ; but after a 
few steps stopped short and said, " Perhaps you'd like 
to go by yourself, sir ? " 

Tom nodded, and the bunch of keys were handed to 
him with an injunction to be sure and lock the door 
after him, and bring them back before eight o'clock. 

We walked quickly through the quadrangle and out 



DEATH. 125 

into the close. The longing which had been upon him 
and driven him thus far, like the gad-fly in the Greek 
legends, giving him no rest in mind or body, seemed all 
of a sudden not to be satisfied, but to shrivel up, and 
pall. " Why should I go on ? It is no use," he thought, 
and threw himself at full length on the turf, and looked 
vaguely and listlessly at all the well-known objects. 
There were a few of the town-boys playing cricket, 
their wicket pitched on the best piece in the middle of 
the big-side ground, a sin about equal to sacrilege in 
the eyes of a captain of the eleven. He was very near- 
ly getting up to go and send them off. " Pshaw ! they 
won't remember me. They've more right there than I," 
he muttered. And the thought that his sceptre had de- 
parted, and his mark was wearing out, came home to 
him for the first time, and bitterly enough. He was 
lying on the very spot where the fights came off ; where 
he himself had fought six years ago his first and last 
battle. He conjured up the scene till he could almost 
hear the shouts of the ring, and East's whisper in his 
ear ; and looking across the close to the Doctor's pri- 
vate door, half-expected to see it open, and the tall 
figure in cap and gown come striding under the elm- 
trees towards him. 

No, no ! that sight could never be seen again. There 
was no flag flying on the round tower ; the school-house 
windows were all shuttered up j and when the flag went 
up again, and the shutters came down, it would be to 



126 TRUE MANLINESS. 

welcome a stranger. All that was left on earth of him 
whom he had honored, was lying cold and still under 
the chapel-floor. He would go in and see the place 
once more, and then leave it once for all. New men 
and new methods might do for other people ; let those 
who would, worship the rising star ; he at least would 
be faithful to the sun which had set. And so he got 
up, and walked to the chapel-door and unlocked it, fan- 
cying himself the only mourner in all the broad land, 
and feeding on his own selfish sorrow. 

He passed through the vestibule, and then paused for 
a moment to glance over the empty benches. His heart 
was still proud and high, and he walked up to the seat 
which he had last occupied as a sixth-form boy, and sat 
himself down there to collect his thoughts. 

And, truth to tell, they needed collecting and setting 
in order not a little. The memories of eight years were 
all dancing through his brain, and carrying him about 
whither they would ; while, beneath them all, his heart 
was throbbing with the dull sense of a loss that could 
never be made up to him. The rays of the evening 
sun came solemnly through the painted windows above 
his head, and fell in gorgeous colors on the opposite 
wall, and the perfect stillness soothed his spirit by little 
and little. And he turned to the pulpit, and looked at 
it, and then, leaning forward with his head on his hands, 
groaned aloud : 

" If he could only have seen the Doctor again for one 



DEATH. 127 

five minutes — have told him all that was in his heart, 
what he owed to him, how he loved and reverenced 
him, and would by God's help follow his steps in life 
and death — he could have borne it all without a mur- 
mur. But that he should have gone away for ever with- 
out knowing it all, was too much to bear." — " But am 
I sure he does not know it all ? " — the thought made 
him start — " May he not even now be near me, in this 
very chapel ? If he be, am I sorrowing as he would 
have me sorrow — as I should wish to have sorrowed 
when I shall meet him again ? " 

He raised himself up and looked around ; and after 
a minute rose and walked humbly down to the lowest 
bench, and sat down on the very seat which he had oc- 
cupied on his first Sunday at Rugby. And then the old 
memories rushed back again, but softened and subdued, 
and soothing him as he let himself be carried away by 
them. And he looked up at the great painted window 
above the altar, and remembered how when a little boy 
he used to try not to look through it at the elm-trees 
and the rocks, before the painted glass came — and the 
subscription for the painted glass, and the letter he 
wrote home for money to give to it. And there, 
down below, was the very name of the boy who sat on 
his right hand on that first day, scratched rudely in the 
oak paneling. 

And then came the thought of all his own school- 
fellows ; and form after form of boys nobler, and braver, 



128 TRUE MANLINESS. 

and purer than he, rose up and seemed to rebuke him. 
Could he not think of them, and what they had felt and 
were feeling, they who had honored and loved from the 
first, the man whom he had taken years to know and 
love ? Could he not think of those yet dearer to him 
who was gone, who bore his name and shared his blood, 
and were now without a husband or a father ? Then 
the grief which he began to share with others became 
gentle and holy, and he rose up once more, and walked 
up the steps to the altar; and while the tears flowed 
freely down his cheeks, knelt down humbly and hope- 
fully, to lay down there his share of a burden which 
had proved itself too heavy for him to bear in his own 
strength. 

LXXVI. 

" It will be forty years ago next month," said the old 
Captain, " since the ship I was then in came home from 
the West Indies station, and was paid off. I had no- 
where in particular to go just then, and so was very 
"glad to get a letter, the morning after I went ashore at 
Portsmouth, asking me to go down to Plymouth for a 
week or so. It came from an old sailor, a friend of my 
family, who had been Commodore of the fleet. He 
lived at Plymouth ; he was a thorough old sailor — what 
you young men would call " an old salt " — and couldn't 
live out of sight of the blue sea and the shipping. It is 



DEATH. 129 

a disease that a good many of us take who have spent 
our best years on the sea. I have it myself — a sort of 
feeling that we must be under another kind of Provi- 
dence, when we look out and see a hill on this side and 
a hill on that. It's wonderful to see the trees come out 
and the corn grow, but then it doesn't come so home to 
an old sailor. I know that we're all just as much undei 
the Lord's hand on shore as at sea ; but you can't read 
in a book you haven't been used to, and they that go 
down to the sea in ships, they see the works of the 
Lord and His wonders in the deep. It isn't their fault 
if they don't see His wonders on the land so easily as 
other people. 

" But, for all that, there's no man enjoys a cruise in the 
country more than a sailor. It's forty years ago since I 
started for Plymouth, but I haven't forgotten the road a 
bit, or how beautiful it was ; all through the New For- 
est, and over Salisbury Plain, and then on by the mail 
to Exeter, and through Devonshire. It took me three 
days to get to Plymouth, for we didn't get about so 
quick in those days. 

" The Commodore was very kind to me when I got 
there, and I went about with him to the ships in the 
bay, and through the dock-yard, and picked up a good 
deal that was of use to me afterwards. I was a lieuten- 
ant in those clays, and had seen a good deal of service, 
and I found the old Commodore had a great nephew 
whom he had adopted, and had set his whole heart 



130 TRUE MANLINESS. 

upon. He was an old bachelor himself, but the boy 
had come to live with him, and was to go to sea ; so he 
wanted to put him under some one who would give an 
eye to him for the first year or two. He was a light 
slip of a boy then, fourteen years old, with deep set 
blue eyes and long eyelashes, and cheeks* like a girl's, 
but as brave as a lion and as merry as a lark. The old 
gentleman was very pleased to see that we took to one 
another. We used to bathe and boat together ; and he 
was never tired of hearing my stories about the great 
admirals, and the fleet, and the stations I had been on. 

" Well, it was agreed that I should apply for a ship 
again directly, and go up to London with a letter to the 
Admiralty from the Commodore to help things on. 
After a month or two I was appointed to a brig, lying at 
Spithead ; and so I wrote off to the Commodore, and 
he got his boy a midshipman's berth on board, and 
brought him to Portsmouth himself a day or two be- 
fore we sailed for the Mediterranean. The old gentle- 
man came on board to see his boy's hammock slung, 
and went below into the cockpit to make sure that all 
was right. He only left us by the pilot-boat when we 
were well out in the Channel. He was very low at 
parting from his boy, but bore up as well as he could ; 
and we promised to write to him from Gibraltar, and 
as often afterwards as we had a chance. 

" I was soon as proud and fond of little Tom Holds- 
worth as if he had been my own younger brother, and, 



DEATH. 131 

for that matter, so were all the crew, from our captain 
to the cook's boy. He was such a gallant youngster, 
and yet so gentle. In one cutting-out business we had, 
he climbed over the boatswain's shoulders, and was 
almost first on deck ; how he came out of it without a 
scratch I can't think to this day. But he hadn't a bit 
of bluster in him, and was as kind as a woman to any 
one who was wounded or down with sickness. 

" After we had been out about a year we were sent to 
cruise off Malta, on the look-out for the French fleet. 
It was a long business, and the post wasn't so good then 
as it is now. We were sometimes for months without 
getting a letter, and knew nothing of what was happen- 
ing at home, or anywhere else. We had a sick time too 
on board, and at last he got a fever. He bore up against 
it like a man, and wouldn't knock off duty for a long 
time. He was midshipman of my watch ; so I used to 
make him turn in early, and tried to ease things to him 
as much as I could ; but he didn't pick up, and I began 
to get very anxious about him. I talked to the doctor, 
and turned matters over in my own mind, and at last I 
came to think he wouldn't get any better unless he could 
sleep out of the cockpit. So one night, the 20th of Octo- 
ber it was — I remember it well enough, better than I 
remember any day since ; it was a dirty night, blowing 
half a gale of wind from the southward, and we were un- 
der close-reefed topsails — I had the first watch, and at 
nine o'clock I sent him down to my cabin to sleep there, 



132 TRUE MANLINESS. 

where he would be fresher and quieter, and I was to 
turn into his hammock when my watch was over. 

" I was on deck three hours or so after he went down, 
and the weather got dirtier and dirtier, and the scud 
drove by, and the wind sang and hummed through the 
rigging — it made me melancholy to listen to it. I 
could think of nothing but the youngster down below, 
and what I should say to his poor old uncle if anything 
happened. Well, soon after midnight I went down and 
turned into his hammock. I didn't go to sleep at once, 
for I remember very well listening to the creaking of 
the ship's timbers as she rose to the swell, and watching 
the lamp, which was slung from the ceiling, and gave 
light enough to make out the other hammocks swinging 
slowly all together. At last, however, I dropped off, and 
I reckon I must have been asleep about an hour, when 
I woke with a start. For the first moment I didn't see 
anything but the swinging hammocks and the lamp ■ but 
then suddenly I became aware that some one was stand- 
ing by my hammock, and I saw the figure as plainly as 
I see any of you now, for the foot of the hammock was 
close to the lamp, and the light struck full across on the 
head and shoulders, which was all that I could see of 
him. There he was, the old Commodore ; his grizzled 
hair coming out from under a red woollen night cap, and 
his shoulders wrapped in an old thread-bare blue dress- 
ing-gown which I had often seen him in. His face 
looked pale and drawn, and there was a wistful, disap- 



DEATH. 133 

pointed look about the eyes. I was so taken aback I 
could not speak, but lay watching him. He looked full 
at my face once or twice, but didn't seem to recognize 
me ; and, just as I was getting back my tongue and go- 
ing to speak, he said slowly: 'Where's Tom? this is 
his hammock. I can't see Tom ; ' and then he looked 
vaguely about and passed away somehow, but how I 
couldn't see. In a moment or two I jumped out and hur- 
ried to my cabin, but young Holdsworth was fast asleep. 
I sat down, and wrote clown just what I had seen, 
making a note of the exact time, twenty minutes to two. 
I didn't turn in again, but sat watching the youngster. 
When he woke I asked him if he had heard anything of 
his great uncle by the last mail. Yes, he had heard ; 
the old gentleman was rather feeble, but nothing par- 
ticular the matter. I kept my own counsel and never 
told a soul in the ship ; and, when the mail came to 
hand a few days afterwards with a letter from the Com- 
modore to his nephew, dated late in September, saying 
that he was well, I thought the figure by my hammock 
must have been all my own fancy. 

" However, by the next mail came the news of the old 
Commodore's death. ' It had been a very sudden break- 
up,' his executor said. He had left all his property, 
which was not much, to his great nephew, who was to 
get leave to come home as soon as he could. 

" The first time we touched at Malta, Tom Holds- 
worth left us and went home. We followed about two 



i 3 4 TRUE MANLINESS. 

years afterwards, and the first thing I did after landing 
was to find out the Commodore's executor. He was a 
quiet, dry little Plymouth lawyer, and very civilly an- 
swered all my questions about the last days of my old 
friend. At last I asked him to tell me as near as he 
could the time of his death ; and he put @n his spec- 
tacles, and got his diary, and turned over the leaves. I 
was quite nervous till he looked up and said, ' Twenty- 
five minutes to two, sir, a.m., on the morning of October 
21st ; or it might be a few minutes later.' 

" ' How do you mean, sir ? ' I asked. 

"'Well,' he said, ' it is an odd story. The doctor 
was sitting with me, watching the old man, and, as I tell 
you, at twenty-five minutes to two, he got up and said it 
was all over. We stood together, talking in whispers 
for, it might be, four or five minutes, when the body 
seemed to move. He was an odd old man, you know, 
the Commodore, and we never could get him properly 
to bed, but he lay in his red nightcap and old dressing- 
gown, with a blanket over him. It was not a pleasant 
sight, I can tell you, sir. I don't think one of you 
gentlemen, who are bred to face all manner of dangers, 
would have liked it. As I was saying, the body first 
moved, and then sat up, propping itself behind with its 
hands. The eyes were wide open, and he looked at us 
for a moment, and said slowly, " I've been to the Medi- 
terranean, but I didn't see Tom." Then the body sank 
back again, and this time the old Commodore was really 



DEATH. 135 

dead. But it was not a pleasant thing to happen to one, 
sir. I do not remember anything like it in my forty 
years' practise. ' " 

There was a silence of a few seconds after the captain 
had finished his story, all the men sitting with eyes fixed 
on him, and not a little surprised at the results of their 
call. Drysdale was the first to break the silence, which 
he did with a long respiration ; but, as he did not seem 
prepared with any further remark, Tom took up the 
running. 

" What a strange story," he said ; " and that really 
happened to you, Captain Hardy ? " 

" To me, sir, in the Mediterranean, more than forty 
years ago." 

" The strangest thing about it is that the old Com- 
modore should have managed to get all the way to the 
ship, and then not have known where his nephew was," 
said Blake. 

" He only knew his nephew's berth, you see, sir," said 
the Captain. 

" But he might have beat about through the ship till 
he had found him." 

" You must remember that he was at his last breath, 
sir," said the Captain ; " you can't expect a man to have 
his head clear at such a moment." 

" Not a man, perhaps ; but I should a ghost," said 
Blake. 



136 TRUE MANLINESS. 

" Time was everything to him," went on the Captain, 
without regarding the interruption, " space nothing. 
But the strangest part of it is that I should have seen 
the figure at all. It's true I had been thinking of the 
old uncle, because of the boy's illness ; but I can't sup- 
pose he was thinking of me, and, as I say, he never rec- 
ognized me. I have taken a great deal of interest in 
such matters since that time, but I have never met with 
just such a case as this." 

" No, that is the puzzle. One can fancy his appear- 
ing to his nephew well enough," said Tom. 

" We can't account for these things, or for a good 
many other things which ought to be quite as startling, 
only we see them every day." 



LXXVIL 

Christianity is in no more real danger now than it 
was a hundred and fifty years ago, when Dean Swift, 
and many other greater wits than we have amongst us 
nowadays, thought and said that it was doomed. We 
hold in perfect good faith, that the good news our Lord 
brought is the best the world will ever hear ; that there 
has been a revelation in the man Jesus Christ, of God 
the Creator of the world as our Father, so that the 
humblest and poorest man can know God for all pur- 
poses for which men need to know him in this life, and 



RELIGIOUS BELIEF. 137 

can have his help in becoming like him, the business 
for which they were sent into it : and that there will be 
no other revelation, though this one will be, through all 
time, unfolding to men more and more of its unspeak- 
able depth, and glory, and beauty, in external nature, in 
human society, in individual men. That, I believe to 
be a fair statement of the positive religious belief of aver- 
age Englishmen, if they had to think it out and to put 
it in words ; and all who hold it must of course look 
upon Christ's gospel as the great purifying, reforming, 
redeeming power in the world, and desire that it shall 
be free to work in their own country on the most favor- 
able conditions which can be found for it. 



LXXVIII. 

We should remember that truth is many-sided ; that 
all truth comes from one source. There is only one sun 
in the heavens, yet, as you know, there are many beau- 
tiful colors, all of which come from the one sun. You 
cannot say that the red is better and truer than the 
blue, or that the blue is better and truer than the yel- 
low. You may prefer one to the other ; you may see 
that one color is more universal, more applicable for 
different purposes than another, but there is truth in 
each. In the same way there is only one earth, but 
there are a great many different trees which grow out of 



138 TRUE MANLINESS. 

it, and which derive their nourishment from it ; and al- 
though the oak may be very much better suited to 
England and the fir to Norway, yet we admit that there 
is truth in each ; that one is just as good and true a tree 
as the other. Therefore, let us who are apt to think in 
the church and other religious communities that we have 
got all the truth ourselves, remember that truth is wider 
than can be apprehended by any body of human beings, 
and let us be tolerant to one another, not forgetting that 
those who are not in the same community with us hold 
their side of the truth as strongly as we do ours. 

Each religious community has witnessed, and is wit- 
nessing, to some side of the truth. Religious communi- 
ties are not perfect in themselves like trees or flowers, 
but for that very reason it is all the more necessary that 
the members of them should be tolerant, and should 
make the greatest effort to understand those of other 
religious beliefs. 

LXXIX. 

I can take little interest in the questions which divide 
Christian churches and sects, can see no reason why 
they should not now be working side by side to redeem 
our waste places, and to make the kingdoms of this 
world the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ. 

St. Ambrose was a holy man, and exceeding zealous, 
even to slaying for the one true creed. One day as he 



RELIGIOUS BELIEF. 139 

was walking in deep meditation as to how to bring all 
men to his own mind, he was aware of a stream, and a 
youth seated beside it. He had never seen so beautiful 
a countenance, and sat down by him to speak of those 
things on which his mind continually dwelt. To his 
horror he found that the beautiful face covered a most 
heretical mind, and he spoke in sorrowful anger to the 
youth of his danger. Whereupon the young stranger 
produced six or seven vases, all of different shapes and 
colors, and, as he filled them from the brook, said to the 
saint (as the legend is versified by Mr. Lowell) : — 

" Now Ambrose, thou maker of creeds, look here — 
As into these vases this water I pour ; 
One shall hold less, another more •, 
But the water the same in every case, 
Shall take the figure of the vase. 
O thou who wouldst unity reach through strife, 
Canst thou fit this sign to the Waters of Life." 

When Ambrose looked up, the youth, the vases, and 
the stream were gone ; but he knew he had talked with 
an angel, and his heart was changed. I wish that 
angel would come and do a great deal of preaching to 
our English Ambroses. 

LXXX. 

" There is no doubt," as Lord Russell says, "that 
concession gives rise to demands for fresh concession, 



140 TRUE MANLINESS. 

and it is right that it should be so. The true limit is, 
that all it is just to concede should be conceded ; all 
that it is true to affirm should be affirmed ; but that which 
is false should be denied." Besides this power of con- 
cession, which she has in a much greater degree than 
any other religious body, the English Church, if she be 
a Catholic Church, as she pretends to be, has also 
greater power of assimilation. Let her not be afraid of 
those sides of the truth which have been most promi- 
nently put forward by other religious communities. She 
can assimilate them if she pleases, and it is her duty to 
assimilate whatever is true in them. Her mission in 
this world is not to hold her own in the sense of resisting 
all reform, of resisting all concession, but her duty and her 
mission is to go to the lost people of our country, and 
of every country where she is established or where she 
exists, and to draw those together into her fold who can- 
not get into that of other religious bodies, which have 
such limits as I have been speaking of to bar the gates 
of admission. Her great mission is to seek and save 
those which are lost in every community. The highest 
title of her ministers is Servi servorum Dei (the servants 
of the servants of God), and, if she remembers this 
high mission, if she endeavors by her life to exemplify 
her Master's spirit and to illustrate His life, she never 
need be afraid of disestablishment or disendowment. 
What did the greatest of churchmen who ever lived say 
on the point of people carrying on those miserable 



RELIGIOUS BELIEF. 141 

squabbles that are dividing us in this day ? They were 
saying, "We are of Paul," "We are of Apollos," "We 
are of Peter ? " and he said, " Who is Paul? Who is 
Apollos ? Who is Peter ? " If you only understand to 
what an inheritance you are called to, " all things are 
yours, whether Paul, or Apollos, or Peter, or the world, 
or life, or death, or things present, or things to come, 
all are yours, for ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's." 



LXXXI. 

It is said by some, as I think, unwise defenders of 
the faith, that a colorless Christianity is no Christianity 
at all, that you can have no church without a definite 
creed. To the first I would reply that, after all, the 
bright white light is, in its purity, better than all color. 
To the second, I admit that every church must have a 
definite creed, but the more simple and broad that creed 
is the better. It is only the simplest creed which can 
give us the unity, or the tolerance in diversity, for which 
all good men are longing. 



LXXXII. 

Meekness, liberality, tolerance of other confessions ! 
These are great virtues, but hard, very hard to practise 
in such hurrying, driving, democratic, competitive times 



142 TRUE MANLINESS. 

as ours, when respect for authority seems to have almost 
died out. Nevertheless, they must be practised, if the 
church is ever to fulfil her great mission, and to become 
in a larger and truer sense than she has ever yet been, 
"The Church of the People." 



LXXXIII. 

Poor conscience ! to what pitiful uses is that sacred 
name turned ! The stolid Essex peasant, one of the 
Peculiar People, lets his child die because he will not 
allow it to take medicine, and believes himself to be 
suffering for conscience's sake because he is summoned 
before a magistrate to answer for its life. And he has 
far more reason on his side than the Ritualist martyrs. 
I desire neither to speak nor think scornfully or bitterly 
of them, but this at least I must say, that men who can 
make matters of conscience of such trivialities as the 
shape and color of vestments, the burning of candles 
and incense, the position of tables, and the like, and in 
defence of these things are prepared to defy authority, 
and break what they know to be the law of their coun- 
try, are not fit to be trusted with the spiritual guidance 
of any portion of our people. England has a great work 
still to do in the world, for which she needs children 
with quite other kind of consciences than these — con- 
sciences which shall be simple, manly, obedient, quali- 



PERSONAL INFLUENCE. 143 

ties which must disappear under such examples and 
teaching as these men are giving. 



LXXXIV. 

Let us look to the One life as our model, and turn to 
Him who lived it on our earth, as to the guide, and 
friend, and helper, who alone can strengthen the feeble 
knees, and lift up the fainting heart. Just in so far as 
we cleave to that teaching and follow that life, shall we 
live our own faithfully. 



LXXXV. 

In certain crises in one's life nothing is so useful or 
healthy for one, as coming into direct and constant con- 
tact with an intellect stronger than one's own, which 
lcoks at the same subjects from a widely different 
standpoint. 

LXXXVI. 

Ah ! light words of those whom we love and honor, 
what a power ye are, and how carelessly wielded by 
those who can use you ! Surely for these things also 
God will ask an account. 



144 TRUE MANLINESS. 



LXXXVII. 



On went the talk and laughter. Two or three of the 
little boys in the long dormitory were already in bed, 
sitting up with their chins on their knees. The light 
burned clear, the noise went on. It was a trying mo- 
ment for Arthur, the poor little lonely boy ; however, 
this time he didn't ask Tom what he might or might not 
do, but dropped on his knees by his bedside, as he had 
done every day from his childhood, to open his heart to 
Him who heareth the cry and beareth the sorrows of the 
tender child, and the strong man in agony 

There were many boys in the room by whom that little 
scene was taken to heart before they slept. But sleep 
seemed to have deserted the pillow of poor Tom. For 
some time his excitement, and the flood of memories 
which chased one another through his brain kept him 
from thinking or resolving. His head throbbed, his 
heart leapt, and he could hardly keep himself from 
springing out of bed and rushing about the room. Then 
the thought of his own mother came across him, and 
the promise he had made at her knee, years ago, never 
to forget to kneel by his bedside, and give himself up to 
his Father, before he laid his head on the pillow, from 
which it might never rise ; and he lay down gently and 
cried as if his heart would break. He was only fourteen 
years old. 



PERSONAL INFLUENCE. 145 

It was no light act of courage in those days for a little 
fellow to say his prayers publicly, even at Rugby. A 
few years later, when Arnold's manly piety had begun 
to leaven the school, the tables turned ; before he died, 
in the school-house, at least, and I believe in the other 
houses, the rule was the other way. But poor Tom 
had come to school in other times. The first few 
nights after he came he did not kneel down because of 
the noise, but sat up in bed till the candle was out, 
and then stole out and said his prayers, in fear lest 
some one should find him out. So did many another 
poor little fellow. Then he began to think that he 
might just as well say his prayers in bed, and then it 
didn't matter whether he was kneeling, or sitting, or 
lying down. And so it had come to pass with Tom, as 
with all who will not confess their Lord before men ; 
and for the last year he had probably not said his 
prayers in earnest a dozen times. 

Poor Tom ! the first and bitterest feeling which was 
likely to break his heart was the sense of his own cow- 
ardice. The vice of all others which he loathed was 
brought in and burned in on his own soul. He had 
lied to his mother, to his conscience, to his God. How 
could he bear it ? And then the poor little weak boy, 
whom he had pitied and almost scorned for his weak- 
ness, had done that which he, braggart as he was, dared 
not do. The first dawn of comfort came to him in 
swearing to himself that he would stand by that boy 



146 TRUE MANLINESS. 

through thick and thin, and cheer him, and help him, 
and bear his burdens, for the good deed done that night. 
Then he resolved to write home next day and tell his 
mother all, and what a coward her son had been. And 
then peace came to him, as he resolved lastly, to bear 
his testimony next morning. The morning would be 
harder than the night to begin with, but he felt that he 
could not afford to let one chance slip. Several times 
he faltered, for the devil showed him first all his old 
friends calling him " Saint " and " Square-toes," and a 
dozen hard names, and whispered to him that his 
motives would be misunderstood, and he would only 
be misunderstood, and he would only be left alone with 
the new boy ; whereas it was his duty to keep all 
means of influence, that he might do good to the largest 
number. And then came the more subtle temptation, 
" Shall I not be showing myself braver than others by 
doing this ? Have I any right to begin it now ? Ought 
I not rather to pray in my own study, letting other 
boys know that I do so, and trying to lead them to it, 
while in public at least I should go on as I have done ?" 
However, his good angel was too strong that night, 
and he turned on his side and slept, tired of trying 
to reason, but resolved to follow the impulse which 
had been so strong, and in which he had found peace. 
Next morning he was up and washed and dressed, 
all but his jacket and waistcoat, just as the ten min- 
utes' bell began to ring, and then in the face of the 



PERSONAL INFLUENCE. 147 

whole room knelt down to pray. Not five words could 
he say — the bell mocked him ; he was listening for 
ever}* whisper in the room — what were they all think- 
ing of him ? He was ashamed to go on kneeling, 
ashamed to rise from his knees. At last, as it were 
from his inmost heart, a still small voice seemed to 
breathe forth the words of the publican, " God be 
merciful to me a sinner ! " He repeated them over 
and over, clinging to them as for his life, and rose 
from his knees comforted and humbled, and ready to 
face the whole world. It was not needed : two other 
boys besides Arthur had already followed his exam- 
ple, and he went down to the great school with a 
glimmering of another lesson in his heart — the lesson 
that he who has conquered his own coward spirit has 
conquered the whole outward world • and that other 
one which the old prophet learned in the cave in 
Mount Horeb, when he hid his face, and the still 
small voice asked, " What doest thou here, Elijah," 
that however we may fancy ourselves alone on the side 
of good, the King and Lord of men is nowhere with- 
out his witnesses ; for in every society, however seem- 
ingly corrupt and godless, there are those who have not 
bowed the knee to Baal. 



LXXXVIII. 

" It is about the toughest part of a man's life, I do 



U8 TRUE MANLINESS. 

believe," said Hardy, " the time he has to spend at col- 
lege. My university life has been so different altogether 
from what yours will be, that my experience isn't likely 
to benefit you." 

" I wish you would try me, though," said Tom ; "you 
don't know what a teachable sort of fellow I am, if any- 
body will take me the right way. You taught me to 
scull, you know • or at least put me in the way to learn. 
But sculling, and rowing, and cricket, and all the rest of 
it, with such reading as I am likely to do, won't be 
enough. I feel sure of that already." 

" I don't think it will," said Hardy. " No amount of 
physical or mental work will fill the vacuum you were 
talking of just now. It is the empty house swept and 
garnished, which the boy might have had glimpses of, 
but the man finds yawning within him, and which must 
be filled somehow. It's a pretty good three-years' work 
to learn how to keep the devils out of it, more or less, 
by the time you take your degree. At least I have 
found it so." 

Hardy rose and took a turn or two up and down his 
room. He was astonished at finding himself talking so 
unreservedly to one of whom he knew so little, and 
half-wished the words recalled. He lived much alone, 
and thought himself morbid and too self-conscious • why 
should he be filling a youngster's head with puzzles? 
How did he know that they were thinking of the same 
thing ? 



PERSONAL INFLUENCE. 149 

But the spoken word cannot be recalled ; it must go 
on its way for good or evil ; and this one set the hearer 
staring into the ashes, and putting many things together 
in his head. 

It was some minutes before he broke silence, but at 
last he gathered up his thoughts, and said, " Well, I 
hope I sha'n't shirk when the time comes. You don't 
think a fellow need shut himself up, though ? I'm sure 
I shouldn't be any the better for that." 

"No, I don't think you would," said Hardy. 

" Because, you see," Tom went on, waxing bolder and 
more confidential, " if I were to take to moping by my- 
self, I shouldn't read as you or any sensible fellow 
would do ; I know that well enough. I should just 
begin, sitting with my legs up on the mantle-piece, and 
looking into my own inside. I see you are laughing, 
but you know what I mean, don't you, now ? " 

" Yes ; staring into the vacuum you were talking of 
just now ; it all comes back to that," said Hardy. 

" Well, perhaps it does," said Tom ; " and I don't be- 
lieve it does a fellow a bit of good to be thinking about 
himself and his own doings." 

" Only he can't help himself," said Hardy. " Let 
him throw himself as he will into all that is going on 
up here, after all he must be alone for a great part of 
his time — all night at any rate — and when he gets 
his oak sported, it's all up with him. He must be 



150 TRUE MANLINESS. 

looking more or less into his own inside as you call 
it." 

"Then I hope he won't find it as ugly a business 
as I do. If he does, I'm sure he can't be worse 
employed." 

" I don't know that," said Hardy ; " he can't learn 
anything worth learning in any other way." 

"Oh, I like that!" said Tom; "it's worth learning 
how to play tennis, and how to speak the truth. You 
can't learn either by thinking about yourself ever so 
much." 

" You must know the truth before you can speak 
it," said Hardy. 

" So you always do in plenty of time." 

" How ? " said Hardy. 

" Oh, I don't know," said Tom ; " by a sort of instinct, 
I suppose. I never in my life felt any doubt about 
what I ought to say or do ; did you ? " 

" Well, yours is a good, comfortable, working belief, 
at any rate," said Hardy, smiling ; " and I should advise 
you to hold on to it as long as you can." 

" But you don't think I can for very long, eh ? " 

" No ; but men are very different. There's no saying. 
If you were going to get out of the self-dissecting busi- 
ness altogether though, why should you have brought 
the subject up at all to-night? It looks awkward for 
you, doesn't it ? " 

Tom began to feel rather forlorn at this suggestion, 



PERSONAL INFLUENCE. 151 

and probably betrayed it in his face, for Hardy changed 
the subject suddenly. 

LXXXIX. 

" You don't mean to say," said Tom that it makes 
any real difference to a man in society here in Oxford, 
whether he is poor or rich ; I mean, of course, if he is a 
gentleman and a good fellow ? " 

" Yes, it does — the very greatest possible. But 
don't take my word for it. Keep your eyes open and 
judge for yourself ; I daresay I'm prejudiced on the 
subject." 

"Well, I sha'n't believe it if I can help it," said Tom ; 
" you know you said just now that you never called on 
any one. Perhaps you don't give men a fair chance. 
They might be glad to know you if you would let them, 
and may think it's your fault that they don't." 

" Very possibly," said Hardy ; " I tell you not to take 
my word for it." 

" It upsets all one's ideas so," went on Tom, " why, 
Oxford ought to be the place in England where money 
should count for nothing. Surely, now, such a man as 
Jervis, our captain, has more influence than all the rich 
men in the college put together, and is more looked up 
to?" 

" He's one of a thousand," said Hardy; " handsome, 
strong, good-tempered, clever, and up to everything. 



152 TRUE MANLINESS. 

Besides, he isn't a poor man ; and mind, I don't say- 
that if he were he wouldn't be where he is. I am speak- 
ing of the rule, and not of the exceptions." 

Here Hardy's scout came in to say that the Dean 
wanted to speak to him. So he put on his cap and 
gown, and Tom rose also. 

"Well, I'm sorry to turn you out," said Hardy, " and 
I'm afraid I've been very surly and made you very un- 
comfortable. You won't come back again in a hurry." 

" Indeed I will though, if you will let me," said Tom ; 
" I have enjoyed my evening immensely." 

" Then come whenever you like," said Hardy. 

" But I am afraid of interfering with your reading," 
said Tom. 

"Oh, you needn't mind that; I have "plenty of time 
on my hands ; besides, one can't read all night, and 
from eight till ten you'll find me generally idle." 

"Then you'll see me often enough. But promise, 
now, to turn me out whenever I am in the way." 

"Very well," said Hardy, laughing; and so they 
parted for the time. 

Some twenty minutes afterwards Hardy returned to 
his room after his interveiw with the Dean, who merely 
wanted to speak to him about some matter of college 
business. He flung his cap and gown on to the sofa, and 
began to walk up and down his room, at first hurriedly, 
but soon with his usual regular tramp. However ex- 
pressive a man's face may be, and however well you 



PERSONAL INFLUENCE. 153 

may know it, it is simply nonsense to say that you can 
tell what he is thinking about by looking at it, as many 
of us are apt to boast. Still more absurd would it be 
to expect readers to know what Hardy is thinking about, 
when they have never had the advantage of seeing his 
face even in a photograph. Wherefore, it would seem 
that the author is bound on such occasions to put his 
readers on equal vantage-ground with himself, and not 
only to tell them what a man does, but, so far as may be, 
what he is thinking about also. 

His first thought, then, was one of pleasure at having 
been sought out by one who seemed to be just the sort 
of friend he would like to have. He contrasted our 
hero with the few men with whom he generally lived, 
and for some of whom he had a high esteem — whose 
only idea of exercise was a two hours' constitutional 
walk in the afternoons, and whose life was chiefly spent 
over books and behind sported oaks — and felt that 
this was more of a man after his own heart. Then 
came doubts whether his new friend would draw back 
when he had been up a little longer, and knew more of 
the place. At any rate he had said and done nothing 
to tempt him ; " if he pushes the acquaintance — and I 
think he will — it will be because he likes me for myself. 
And I can do him good too, I feel sure," he went on, as 
he ran over rapidly his own life for the last three years. 
" Perhaps he won't flounder into all the sloughs that I 
have had to drag through ; he will get too much of the 



154 TRUE MANLINESS. 

healthy, active life up here for that, which I never had ; 
but some of them he must get into. All the companion- 
ship of boating and cricketing, and wine-parties and 
supper-parties, and all the reading in the world won't 
keep him from many a long hour of mawkishness, and 
discontent, and emptiness of heart ; he feels that already 
himself. Am I sure of that, though ? I may be only 
reading myself into him. At any rate, why should I 
have helped to trouble him before the time ? Was that a 
friend's part ? Well, he must face it, and the sooner the 
better perhaps. At any rate it is done. But what a 
blessed thing if one can only help a youngster like this 
to fight his way through the cold clammy atmosphere 
which is always hanging over him, and ready to settle 
down on him — can help to keep some living faith in 
him, that the world, Oxford and all, isn't a respectable 
piece of machinery set going some centuries back ! 
Ah ! it's an awful business, that temptation to believe, 
or think you believe, in a dead God. It has nearly 
broken my back a score of times. What are all the 
temptations of the world, the flesh, and the devil to 
this? It includes them all. Well, I believe I can help 
him, and, please God, I will, if he will only let me ; and 
the very sight of him does me good ; so I won't believe 
we went down the lasher together for nothing." 



REFORMS. 155 

XC. 

Don't let reformers of any sort think that they 
are going really to lay hold of the working boys and 
young men of England by any educational grapnel 
whatever, which hasn't some bona fide equivalent for 
the games of the old country " veast " in it ; some- 
thing to put in the place of the back-swording and 
wrestling and racing ; something to try the muscles of 
men's bodies, and the endurance of their hearts, and 
to make them rejoice in their strength. In all the new- 
fangled comprehensive plans which I see, this is all 
left out : and the consequence is, that your great 
Mechanics' Institutes end in intellectual priggism, and 
your Christian Young Men's Societies in religious Phar- 
isaism. 

Well, well, we must bide our time. Life isn't all 
beer and skittles — but beer and skittles, or something 
better of the same sort, must form a good part of every 
Englishman's education. If I could only drive this 
into the heads of you rising Parliamentary Lords, and 
young swells who " have your ways made for you," as 
the saying is — you, who frequent palaver houses and 
West-end Clubs, waiting always to strap yourselves on 
to the back of poor dear old John Bull, as soon as the 
present used-up lot (your fathers and uncles), who sit 
there on the great Parliamentary-majorities' pack-sad- 
dle, and make believe they're grinding him with their 



156 TRUE MANLINESS. 

red-tape bridle, tumble, or have to be lifted off ! 

I don't think much of you yet — I wish I could ; 
though you do go talking and lecturing up and down 
the country to crowded audiences, and are busy, with 
all sorts of philanthropic intellectualism, and circulat- 
ing libraries and museums, and heaven only knows 
what besides, and try to make us think, through news- 
paper reports, that you are, even as we, of the working 
classes. But, bless your hearts, we ain't so "green," 
though lots of us of all sorts toady you enough certainly, 
and try to make yon think so. 

I'll tell you what to do now : instead of all this 
trumpeting and fuss, which is only the old Parliamentary- 
majority dodge over again — just you go, each of 
you (you've plenty of time for it, if you'll only give up 
the other line), and quietly make three or four friends, 
real friends, among us. You'll mid a little trouble in 
getting at the right sort, because such birds don't come 
lightly to your lure — but found they may be. Take, 
say, two out of the professions, lawyer, parson, doctor— 
which you will ; one out of trade, and three or four out 
of the working classes, tailors, engineers, carpenters, 
engravers — there's plenty of choice. Let them be 
men of your own ages, mind, and ask them to your 
homes ; introduce them to your wives and sisters, and 
get introduced to theirs ; give them good dinners, and 
talk to them about what is really at the bottom of your 
hearts, and box, and run, and row with them, when you 



REFORMS. 157 

have a chance. Do all this honestly as man to man, 
and by the time you come to ride old John, you'll be 
able to do something more than sit on his back, and 
may feel his mouth with some stronger bridle than a 
red-tape one. 

Ah, if you only would ! But you have got too far out 
of the right rut, I fear. Too much over-civilization, 
and the deceitfulness of riches. It is easier for a 
camel to go through the eye of a needle. More's the 
pity. I never came across but two of you who could 
value a man wholly and solely for what was in him ; who 
thought themselves verily and indeed of the same flesh 
and blood as John Jones, the attorney's clerk, and Bill 
Smith, the costermonger, and could act as if they thought 
so. 

XCI. 

The change in Tom's opinions and objects of interest 
brought him now into more intimate relations with a set 
of whom he had as yet seen little. For want of a better 
name, we may call them " the party of progress." At 
their parties, instead of practical jokes, and boisterous 
mirth, and talk of boats, and bats, and guns, and 
horses, the highest and deepest questions of morals, 
and politics, and metaphysics, were discussed, and dis- 
cussed with a freshness and enthusiasm which is apt to 
wear off when doing has to take the place of talking, 



158 TRUE MANLINESS. 

but has a strange charm of its own while it lasts, and is 
looked back to with loving regret by those for whom it 
is no longer a possibility. 

With this set Tom soon fraternized, and drank in 
many new ideas, and took to himself also many new 
crotchets besides those with which he was really weight- 
ed. Almost all his new acquaintances were Liberal in 
politics, but a few only were ready to go all lengths with 
him. They were all Union men, and Tom, of course, 
followed the fashion, and soon propounded theories in 
that institution which gained him the name of Chartist 
Brown. 

There was a strong mixture of self-conceit in it all. 
He had a kind of idea that he had discovered some- 
thing which it was creditable to have discovered, and 
that it was a very fine thing to have all these feelings 
for, and sympathies with, "the masses," and to believe 
in democracy, and "glorious humanity," and "a good 
time coming," and I know not what other big matters. 
And, although it startled and pained him at first to hear 
himself called ugly names, which he had hated and 
despised from his youth upland to know that many of 
his old acquaintances looked upon him, not simply as a 
madman, but as a madman with snobbish proclivities ; 
yet, when the first plunge was over, there was a good 
deal on the other hand which tickled his vanity, and 
was far from being unpleasant. 

To do him justice, however, the disagreeables were 



REFORMS. 159 

such that, had there not been some genuine belief at 
the bottom, he would certainly have been headed back 
very speedily into the fold of political and social ortho- 
doxy. As it was, amidst the cloud of sophisms, and 
platitudes, and big one-sided ideas half-mastered, which 
filled his thoughts and overflowed in his talk, there was 
growing in him and taking firmer hold on him daily a 
true and broad sympathy for men as men, and especially 
for poor men as poor men, and a righteous and burning 
hatred against all laws, customs, or notions, which, ac- 
cording to his light, either were or seemed to be setting 
aside, or putting anything else in the place of, or above 
the man. It was with him the natural outgrowth of the 
child's and boy's training (though his father would have 
been much astonished to be told so), and the instincts 
of those early days were now getting rapidly set into 
habits and faiths, and becoming a part of himself. 

In this stage of his life, as in so many former ones, 
Tom got great help from his intercourse with Hardy, 
now the rising tutor of the college. Hardy was travel- 
ling much the same road himself as our hero, but was 
somewhat further on, and had come into it from a differ- 
ent country, and through quite other obstacles. Their 
early lives had been so different ; and, both by nature 
and from long and severe self-restraint and discipline, 
Hardy was much the less impetuous and demonstrative 
of the two. He did not rush out, therefore (as Tom 
was too much inclined to do), the moment he had seized 



160 TRUE MANLINESS. 

hold of the end of a new idea which he felt to be good 
for him and what he wanted, and brandish it in the face 
of all comers, and think himself a traitor to the truth if 
he wasn't trying to make everybody he met with eat it. 
Hardy, on the contrary, would test his new idea, and 
turn it over, and prove it as far as he could, and try to 
get hold of the whole of it, and ruthlessly strip off any 
tinsel or rose-pink sentiment with which it might happen 
to be mixed up. 

Often and often did Tom suffer under this severe 
method, and rebel against it, and accuse his friend, both 
to his face and in his own secret thought, of coldness, and 
want of faith, and all manner of other sins of omission 
and commission. In the end, however, he generally 
came round, with more or less of rebellion, according to 
the severity of the treatment, and acknowledged that, 
when Hardy brought him down from riding the high 
horse, it was not without good reason, and that the 
dust in which he was rolled was always most wholesome 
dust. 

For instance, there was no phrase more frequently 
in the mouths of the party^of progress than " the good 
cause." It was a fine big-sounding phrase, which could 
be used with great effect in perorations of speeches at 
the Union, and was sufficiently indefinite to be easily 
defended from ordinary attacks, while it saved him who 
used it the trouble of ascertaining accurately for him- 
self or settling for his hearers what it really did mean. 



REFORMS. 161 

But, however satisfactory it might be before promiscuous 
audiences, and so long as vehement assertion or decla- 
ration was all that was required to uphold it, this same 
"good cause" was liable to come to much grief when it 
had to get itself defined. Hardy was particularly given 
to persecution on this subject, when he could get Tom, 
and, perhaps, one or two others, in a quiet room by 
themselves. While professing the utmost sympathy for 
" the good cause," and a hope as strong as theirs that 
all its enemies might find themselves suspended to 
lamp-posts as soon as possible, he would pursue it into 
corners from which escape was most difficult, asking it 
and its supporters what it exactly was, and driving them 
from one cloud-land to another, and from "the good 
cause" to the "people's cause," "the cause of labor," 
and other like troublesome definitions, until the great 
idea seemed to have no shape or existence any longer 
even in their own brains. 

But Hardy's persecution, provoking as it was for the 
time, never went to the undermining of any real con- 
viction in the minds of his juniors, or the shaking of 
anything which did not need shaking, but only helped 
them to clear their ideas and brains as to what they were 
talking and thinking about, and gave them glimpses — 
soon clouded over again, but most useful, nevertheless 
— of the truth, that there were a good many knotty 
questions to be solved before a man could be quite sure 
that he had found out the way to set the world 



1 62 TRUE MANLINESS. 

thoroughly to rights, and heal all the ills that flesh is 
heir to. 

Hardy treated another of his friend's most favorite 
notions even with less respect than this one of "the 
good cause." Democracy, that " universal democracy," 
which their favorite author had recently declared to 
be " an inevitable fact of the clays in which we live," 
was, perhaps, on the whole the pet idea of the small 
section of liberal young Oxford, with whom Tom was 
now hand and glove. They lost no opportunity of 
worshipping it, and doing battle for it ; and, indeed, did 
most of them very truly believe that that state of the 
world which this universal democracy was to bring about 
and which was coming no man could say how soon, 
was to be in fact that age of peace and good-will which 
men had dreamt of in all times, when the lion should 
lie down with the kid, and nation should.not vex nation 
any more. 

After hearing something to this effect from Tom on 
several occasions, Hardy cunningly lured him to his 
rooms on the pretence of talking over the prospects of 
the boat club, and then, having seated him by the fire, 
which he himself proceeded to assault gently with the 
poker, propounded suddenly to him the question : 

" Brown, I should like to know what you mean by 
1 democracy ? ' " 

Tom at once saw the trap into which he had fallen, 
and made several efforts to break away, but unsuccess- 



REFORMS. 163 

fully j and, being seated to a cup of tea, and allowed to 
smoke, was then and there grievously oppressed, and 
mangled, and sat upon, by his oldest and best friend. 
He took his ground carefully, and propounded only what 
he felt sure that Hardy himself would at once accept — • 
what no man of any worth could possibly take exception 
to. " He meant much more," he said, " than this ; but 
for the present purpose it would be enough for him to 
say that, whatever else it might mean, democracy in his 
mouth always meant that every man should have a 
share in the government of his country." 

Hardy, seeming to acquiesce, and making a sudden 
change in the subject of their talk, decoyed his inno- 
cent guest away from the thought of democracy for a 
few minutes, by holding up to him the flag of hero- 
worship, in which worship Tom was, of course, a sedu- 
lous believer. Then, having involved him in most 
difficult country, his persecutor opened fire upon him 
from masked batteries of the most deadly kind, the guns 
being all from the armory of his own prophets. 

" You long for the rule of the ablest man, everywhere, 
at all times ? To find your ablest man, and then give 
him power, and obey him — that you hold to be about 
the highest act of wisdom which a nation can be capable 
of ? " 

" Yes ; and you know you believe that too, Hardy, 
just as firmly as I do." 

" I hope so. But then, how about our universal 



164 TRUE MANLINESS. 

democracy, and every man having a share in the gov- 
ernment of his country ? " 

Tom felt that his flank was turned ; in fact, the con- 
trast of his two beliefs had never struck him vividly 
before, and he was consequently much confused. But 
Hardy went on tapping a big coal gently with the poker, 
and gave him time to recover himself and collect his 
thoughts. 

" I don't mean, of course, that every man is to have 
an actual share in the government," he said at last. 

" But every man is somehow to have a share ; and, if 
not an actual one, I can't see what the proposition 
comes to." 

" I call it having a share in the government when a 
man has share in saying who shall govern him." 

" Well, you'll own that's a very different thing. But, 
let's see ; will that find our wisest governor for us — 
letting all the foolishes.t men in the nation have a say as 
to who he is to be ? " 

" Come now, Hardy, I've heard you say that you are 
for manhood suffrage." 

" That's another question ; you let in another idea 
there. At present we are considering whether the vox 
populi is the best test for finding your best man. I'm 
afraid all history is against you." 

" That's a good joke. Now, there I defy you, Hardy." 

" Begin at the beginning, then, and let us see." 

" I suppose you'll say, then, that the Egyptian and 



REFORMS. 165 

Babylonian empires were better than the little Jewish 
republic." 

" Republic ! well, let that pass. But I never heard 
that the Jews elected Moses, or any of the judges." 

" Well, never mind the Jews ; they're an exceptional 
case : you can't argue from them." 

" I don't admit that. I believe just the contrary. 
But go on." 

" Well, then, what do you say to the glorious Greek 
republics, with Athens at the head of them ? " 

" I say that no nation ever treated their best men so 
badly. I see I must put on a lecture in Aristophanes 
for your special benefit. Vain, irritable, shallow, sus- 
picious old Demus, with his two oboli in his cheek, and 
doubting only between Cleon and the sausage-seller, 
which he shall choose for his wisest man — not to 
govern, but to serve his whims and caprices. You must 
call another witness, I think." 

" But that's a caricature." 

" Take the picture, then, out of Thucydides, Plato, 
Xenophon, how you will — you won't mend the matter 
much. You shouldn't go so fast, Brown; you won't 
mind my saying so, I know. You don't get clear in your 
own mind before you pitch into every one who comes 
across you, and so do your own side (which I admit is 
mostly the right one) more harm than good." 

Tom couldn't stand being put down so summarily, 
and fought over the ground from one country to another, 



1 66 TRUE MANLINESS. 

from Rome to the United States, with all the arguments 
he could muster, but with little success. That unfortu- 
nate first admission of his, he felt it throughout, like a 
mill-stone round his neck, and could not help admitting 
to himself, when he left, that there was a good deal in 
Hardy's concluding remark : " You'll find it rather a 
tough business to get your ' universal democracy,' and 
1 government by the wisest,' to pull together in one 
coach." 

Notwithstanding all such occasional reverses and cold 
baths, however, Tom went on strengthening himself in 
his new opinions, and maintaining them with all the zeal 
of a convert. The shelves of his bookcase, and the 
walls of his room, soon began to show signs of the 
change which was taking place in his ways of looking at 
men and things. Hitherto a framed engraving of 
George III. had hung over his mantel-piece ; but early 
in this, his third year, the frame had disappeared for a 
few days, and when it reappeared, the solemn face of 
John Milton looked out from it, while the honest mon- 
arch had retired into a portfolio. A facsimile of Magna 
Charta soon displaced a large colored print of "A Day 
with the Pycheley ; " and soon afterwards the death- 
warrant of Charles I., with its grim and resolute rows of 
signatures and seals, appeared on the wall in a place of 
honor, in the neighborhood of Milton. 



REFORMS. 167" 

XCII. 

" I can't for the life of me fancy, I confess," wrote 
Tom, " what } r ou think will come of speculating about 
necessity and free will. I only know that I can hold 
out my hand before me, and can move it to the right or 
left, despite of all powers in heaven or earth. As I sit 
here writing to you I can let into my heart, and give the 
reins to, all sorts of devils' passions, or to the Spirit of 
God. Well, that's enough for me. I know it of myself, 
and I believe you know it of yourself, and even-body 
knows it of themselves or himself ; and why you can't 
be satisfied with that, passes my comprehension. As if 
one hasn't got puzzles enough, and bothers enough, 
under one's nose, without going afield after a lot of 
metaphysical quibbles. No, I'm wrong — not going 
afield — anything one has to go afield for is all right. 
What a fellow meets outside himself he isn't responsible 
for, and must do the best he can with. But to go on 
forever looking inside of one's self, and groping about 
amongst one's own sensations, and ideas, and whimsies 
of one kind and another, I can't conceive a poorer line 
of business than that. Don't you get into it now, that's 
a dear boy. 

"Very likely you'll tell me you can't help it; that 
every one has his own difficulties, and must fight them 
out, and that mine are one sort, and yours another. 
Well, perhaps you may be right. I hope I'm getting to 



1 68 TRUE MANLINESS. 

know that my plummet isn't to measure all the world. 
But it does seem a pity that men shouldn't be thinking 
about how to cure some of the wrongs which poor dear 
old England is pretty near dying of, instead of taking 
the edge off their brains, and spending all their steam 
in speculating about all kinds of things, which wouldn't 
make any poor man in the world — • or rich one either, 
for that matter — a bit better off, if. they were all found 
out, and settled to-morrow." 

XCIII. 

William Cobbett was born in 1762 at Farnham, the 
third son of a small farmer, honest, industrious, and 
frugal, from whom, as his famous son writes, "if he 
derived no honor, he derived no shame," and who used 
to boast that he had four boys, the eldest but fifteen, 
who did as much work as any three men in the parish 
of Farnham. "When I first trudged afield," William 
writes, " with my wooden bottle and satchel slung over 
my shoulder, I was hardly able to climb the gates and 
stiles." From driving the small birds from the turnip- 
seed and rooks from the peas, he rose to weeding wheat, 
hoeing peas, and so up to driving the plough for 2d. a. 
day, which paid for the evening school where he learned 
to read and write, getting in this rough way the rudi- 
ments of an education over which he rejoices as he con- 
trasts it triumphantly with that of the " frivolous idiots 



REFORMS. 169 

that are turned out from Winchester and Westminster 
Schools, or from those dens of dunces called Colleges 
and Universities," as having given him the ability to be- 
come " one of the greatest terrors to one of the greatest 
and most powerful bodies of knaves and fools that 
were ever permitted to afflict this or any other country." 
At eleven he was employed in clipping the boxedg- 
ings in the gardens of Farnham Castle, and, hearing 
from one of the gardeners of the glories of Kew, he 
started for that place with is. i\d. in his pocket, 3^/. of 
which sum he spent in buying " Swift's Tale of a Tub." 
The book produced a " birth of intellect " in the little 
rustic. He carried it with him wherever he went, and 
at twenty-four lost it in a box which fell overboard in 
the Bay of Fundy, a " loss which gave me greater pain 
than I have ever felt at losing thousands of pounds." 
He returned home, and continued to work for his father 
till 1782, attending fairs and hearing Washington's 
health proposed by his father at farmers' ordinaries. 
In that year he went on a visit to Portsmouth, saw the 
sea for the first time, and was with difficulty hindered 
from taking service at once on board a man-of-war. He 
returned home "spoilt for a farmer," and next year 
started for London. He served in a solicitor's office in 
Gray's Inn for eight months (where he worked hard at 
grammar), then enlisted in the 54th regiment, and after 
a few weeks' drill at Chatham embarked for Nova 
Scotia, where the corps were serving. Here his temper- 



170 TRUE MANLINESS. 

ate habits, strict performance of duty, and masterly 
ability and intelligence, raised him in little more than a 
year to the post of sergeant-major over the heads of 
fifty comrades his seniors in service. His few spare 
hours were spent in hard study, especially in acquiring 
a thorough mastery of grammar. He had bought 
Lowth's Grammar, which he wrote out two or three 
times, got it by heart, and imposed on himself the task 
of saying it over to himself every time he was posted 
sentinel. When he had thoroughly mastered it, and 
could write with ease and correctness, he turned to 
logic, rhetoric, geometry, French, to Vauban's fortifica- 
tion, and books on military exercise and evolutions. 
In this way, by the year 1791, when the 54th was re- 
called, he had become the most trusted man in the regi- 
ment. The colonel used him as a sort of second adju- 
tant ; all the paymaster's accounts were prepared by 
him ; he coached the officers, and used to make out 
cards with the words of command for many of them, 
who, on parade, as he scornfully writes, "were com- 
manding me to move my hands and feet in words I had 
taught them, and were in everything except mere author- 
ity my inferiors, and ought to have been commanded by 
me." Notwithstanding the masterfulness already show- 
ing itself, Cobbett was a strictly obedient soldier, and 
left the army with the offer of a commission, and the 
highest character for ability aud zeal. 

No sooner, however, was his discharge accomplished, 



REFORMS. 171 

than he set himself to work to expose and bring to 
justice several of the officers of his regiment, who had 
systematically mulcted the soldiers in their companies 
of their wretched pay. His thorough knowledge of the 
regimental accounts made him a formidable accuser ; 
and, after looking into the matter, the then Judge- 
Advocate-General agreed to prosecute, and a court-mar- 
tial was summoned at Woolwich for the purpose in 1792. 
But Cobbett did not appear. He found that it would 
be necessary to call his clerks, still serving in the regi- 
ment, and the consequences to them in those days were 
likely to be so serious, that he preferred to abandon his 
attempt. Accordingly, he did not appear, and the fact 
was bitterly used against him in later days by his polit- 
ical opponents. The whole story is worth reading, and 
is very fairly given by Mr. Smith. He had now made a 
happy marriage with the girl to whom he had entrusted 
all his savings years before, and started with her to 
Paris ; but, hearing on the way of the king's dethrone- 
ment, and the Bastile riots, he turned aside and embarked 
for America. 

He arrived in Philadelphia in October 1792, enthusi- 
astic for the land of liberty, and an ardent student of 
Paine's works, and set to work to gain his living by 
teaching English to the French emigrants there, and by 
such literary work as he could get. In both he was 
very successful, but soon found himself in fierce antag- 
onism with the American press, and, after publishing 



172 TRUE MANLINESS. 

several pamphlets, "A Kick for a Bite," "A Bone to 
Gnaw for the Democrats," &c, established his first 
famous periodical, " Peter Porcupine," which soon 
gained him the reputation in England as well as 
America of a staunch and able loyalist, and severe critic 
of Republican institutions. The only serious mistake 
in his American career was his attack on Dr. Priestly, 
then also an emigrant in Philadelphia. The States had 
become an undesirable place of residence for him 
before 1798, when an intimation reached him through 
the British Embassy that the English Government were 
sensible of the obligations they owed him, and were 
prepared to advance his interests. These overtures he 
steadily refused ■ but, finding a Royalist's life was 
becoming too hot, and having been beaten in a libel 
suit, which nearly ruined him (though his expenses were 
nominally defrayed by the subscriptions of his Ameri- 
can admirers), he closed the brilliant career of " Peter 
Porcupine's Gazette," and returned to England, having 
at last, to use his own phrase, " got the better of all 
diffidence in my own capacity." 

He reached home in 1800, and found himself at once 
courted and famous. He was entertained by Ministers 
of State and publishers, but after looking round him in 
his own sturdy fashion, and finding the condition of 
the political and literary world by no means to his 
mind, while that of the great body of the people was 
becoming worse every day, he resisted all temptations 



REFORMS. 173 

and started on the career which he followed faithfully 
till his death. In 1802 appeared the first number of 
" Cobbett's Political Register," which (with the break of 
two months in 18 17, when he fled from the new Gagging 
Act to America) continued to appear weekly till June 
1835, and remains a wonderful witness to the strength 
and the weaknesses of the Sussex ploughboy. During 
those long years, and all the fierce controversies which 
marked them, he was grandly faithful, according to his 
lights, to the cause of the poor : — "I for my part should 
not be at all surprised," he wrote in 1806, " if some one 
were to propose selling the poor, or mortgaging them to 
the fund-holders. Ah ! you may wince ; you may cry 
Jacobin or leveller as long as you please. I wish to see 
the poor men of England what the poor men of Eng- 
land were when I was born ; and from endeavoring to 
accomplish this wish nothing but the want of means 
shall make me desist." And loyally he maintained the 
fight against sinecures, place-hunting, and corruption of 
all kinds until his death, full of years, the member for 
Oldham, and the popular leader of the widest influence 
among the Liberal party of the first Reform period. 
For the incidents of the long struggle — how the gov- 
ernment press turned savagely on the man whom they 
had hailed on his return from America as one " whom 
no corruption can seduce nor any personal clanger 
intimidate from the performance of his duty ; " how 
Attornev-Generals watched him and prosecuted : how 



174 TRUE MANLINESS. 

he insisted on conducting his own causes, and so spent 
two years in jail, and was mulcted again and again in 
heavy damages • how he fought through it all, and tended 
his farm and fruit-trees, and wrote his " Rural Rides " 
and " Cottage Economy," and was a tender and loving 
man in his own home, and retained the warm regard of 
such men as Wyndham and Lord Radnor, while he was 
the best hated and abused man in England — we must 
refer all (and we hope there are many) who care to know 
about them to the second volume of Edward Smith's 
life of Cobbett. 

There are few lives that we know of better worth 
careful study in these times. We have no space here 
to do more than quote the best estimate of the man's 
work which has ever come from one of those classes 
who for thirty-five years looked on him as their most 
dangerous enemy : — ■ 

" I know him well, on every side 

Walled round with wilful prejudice ; 
A self-taught peasant rough in speech, 
Self-taught, and confident to teach, 
In blame not over wise. 

What matter, if an honest thought 
Sometimes a homely phrase require ? 

Let those who fear the bracing air 

Look for a milder sky elsewhere, 
Or stay beside the fire. 



REFORMS. 175 

There are worse things in this bad world 
Than bitter speech and bearing free — 

I hail thee, genuine English born — 

Not yet the lineage is outworn 
That owns a man like thee." 



XCIV. 

The state of Europe thirty years ago was far more 
dead and hopeless than now. There were no wars, cer- 
tainly, and no expectations of wars. But there was a 
dull, beaten-down, pent-up feeling abroad, as if the lid 
were screwed down on the nations, and the thing which 
had been, however cruel and heavy and mean, was that 
which was to remain to the end. England was better 
off than her neighbors, but yet in bad case. In the 
south and west particularly, several causes had com- 
bined to spread a very bitter feeling abroad amongst 
the agricultural poor. First among these stood the new 
poor law, the provisions of which were rigorously carried 
out in most districts. The poor had as yet felt the 
harshness only of the new system. Then the land was 
in many places in the hands of men on their last legs, 
the old sporting farmers, who had begun business as 
young men while the great war was going on, had made 
money hand over hand for a few years out of the war 
prices, and had tried to go on living with grayhounds 
and yeomanry uniforms — " horse to ride and weapon to 



176 TRUE MANLINESS. 

wear " — through the hard years which had followed. 
These were bad masters in every way, unthrifty, pro- 
fligate, needy, and narrow-minded. The younger men 
who were supplanting them were introducing machinery 
threshing machines and winnowing machines, to take the 
little bread which a poor man was still able to earn out 
of the mouths of his wife and children — so at least the 
poor thought and muttered to one another ; and the 
mutterings broke out every now and then in the long 
nights of the winter months in blazing ricks and broken 
machines. Game preserving was on the increase. 
Australia and America had not yet become familiar 
words in every English village, and the labor market 
was everywhere overstocked ; and last, but not least, the 
corn laws were still in force, and the bitter and exasper- 
ating strife in which they went out was at its height. 
And while Swing and his myrmidons were abroad in the 
counties, and could scarcely be kept down by yeomanry 
and poor-law guardians, the great towns were in almost 
worse case. Here too emigration had not yet set in to 
thin the labor market ; wages were falling, and prices 
rising ; the corn-law struggle was better understood and 
far keener than in the country ; and Chartism was gain- 
ing force every day, and rising into a huge threatening 
giant, waiting to put forth his strength, and eager for 
the occasion which seemed at hand. 

You generation of young men, who were too young 
then to be troubled with such matters, and have grown 



REFORMS. 177 

into manhood since, you little know — may you never 
know ; — what it is to be living the citizens of a divided 
and distracted nation. For the time that danger is past. 
In a happy hour, and so far as man can judge, in time, 
and only just in time, came the repeal of the corn laws, 
and the great cause of strife and the sense of injustice 
passed away out of men's minds. The nation was 
roused by the Irish famine, and the fearful distress in 
other parts of the country, to begin looking steadily 
and seriously at some of the sores which were festering 
in its body, and undermining health and life. And so 
the tide had turned, and England had already passed 
the critical point, when 1848 came upon Christendom, 
and the whole of Europe leapt up into a wild blaze of 
revolution. 

Is any one still inclined to make lisfht of the dansrer 
that threatened England in that year, to sneer at the 
10th of April, and the monster petition, and the mon- 
ster meetings on Kennington and other commons ? 
Well, if there be such persons amongst my readers, I 
can only say that they can have known nothing of what 
was going on around them and below them, at that time, 
and I earnestly hope that their vision has become 
clearer since then, and that they are not looking with 
the same eyes that see nothing, at the signs of to-day. 
For that there are questions still to be solved by us in 
England, in this current half-century, quite as likely to 
tear the nation in pieces as the corn laws, no man with 



178 TRUE MANLINESS. 

half an eye in his head can doubt. They may seem 
little clouds like a man's hand on the horizon just now, 
but they will darken the whole heaven before long, 
unless we can find wisdom enough amongst us to take 
the little clouds in hand in time, and make them de- 
scend in soft rain. 

xcv. 

The years 1848-9 had been years of revolution, and, 
as always happens at such times, the minds of men had 
been greatly stirred on many questions, and especially 
on the problem of the social condition of the great 
mass of the poor in all European countries. In Paris, 
the revolution had been the signal for a great effort on 
the part of the workmen ; and some remarkable experi- 
ments had been made, both by the Provisional Govern- 
ment of 1848 and by certain employers of labor, and 
bodies of skilled mechanics, with a view to place the 
conditions of labor upon a more equitable and satisfac- 
tory footing, or, to use the common phrase of the clay, 
to reconcile the interests of capital and labor. The 
government experiment of " national workshops " had 
failed disastrously, but a number of the private associa- 
tions were brilliantly successful. The history of some 
of these associations — of the sacrifices which had been 
joyfully made by the associates in order to collect the 
small funds necessary to start them — of the ability and 



REFORMS. 179 

industry with which they were conducted, and of their 
marvellous effect on the habits of all those engaged in 
the work, had deeply interested many persons in Eng- 
land. It was resolved to try an experiment of the same 
kind in England, but the conditions were very 7 different. 
The seed there had already taken root amongst the 
industrial classes, and the movement had come from 
them. In England the workpeople, as a rule, had no 
belief in association, except for defensive purposes. It 
was chiefly amongst young professional men that the 
idea was working, and it was necessary to preach it to 
those whom it most concerned. Accordingly a society 
was formed, chiefly of young barristers, under the presi- 
dency of the late Mr. Maurice, who was then Chaplain 
of Lincoln's Inn, for the purpose of establishing associ- 
ations similar to those in Paris. It was called the 
Society for Promoting Working Men's Associations, and 
I happened to be one of the original members, and on 
the Council. We were all full of enthusiasm and hope 
in our work, and of propagandist zeal : anxious to bring 
in all the recruits we could. I cannot even now think 
of my own state of mind at the time without wonder and 
amusement. I certainly thought (and for that matter 
have never altered my opinion to this day) that here we 
had found the solution of the great labor question ; but 
I was also convinced that we had nothing to do but just 
to announce it, and found an association or two, in 
order to convert all England, and usher in the millen- 



180 TRUE MANLINESS. 

nium at once, so plain did the whole thing seem to me. 
I will not undertake to answer for the rest of the Coun- 
cil, but I doubt whether I was at all more sanguine than 
the majority. Consequently we went at it with a will : 
held meetings at six o'clock in the morning (so as not 
to interfere with our regular work) for settling the rules 
of our central society, and its off-shoots, and late in the 
evening, for gathering tailors, shoemakers, and other 
handicraftsmen, whom we might set to work-; started a 
small publishing office, presided over by a diminutive 
one-eyed costermonger, a rough-and-ready speaker and 
poet (who had been in prison as a Chartist leader), from 
which we issued tracts and pamphlets, and ultimate- 
ly a small newspaper • and, as the essential condition 
of any satisfactory progress, commenced a vigorous 
agitation for such an amendment in the law as would 
enable our infant associations to carry on their business 
in safety, and without hindrance. We very soon had 
our hands full. Our denunciations of unlimited com- 
petition brought on us attacks in newspapers and maga- 
zines, which we answered, nothing loth. Our opponents 
called us Utopians and Socialists, and we retorted that at 
any rate we were Christians ; that our trade principles 
were on all-fours with Christianity, while theirs were 
utterly opposed to it. So we got, or adopted, the name 
of Christian Socialists, and gave it to our tracts, and our 
paper. We were ready to fight our battle wherever we 
found an opening, and got support from the most unex- 



REFORMS. 181 

pected quarters. I remember myself being asked to 
meet Archbishop Whately, and several eminent politi- 
cal economists, and explain what we were about. After 
a couple of hours of hard discussion, in which I have no 
doubt I talked much nonsense, I retired, beaten, but 
quite unconvinced. Xext day, the late Lord Ashburton, 
who had been present, came to my chambers and gave 
me a cheque for ^50 to help our experiment; and a 
few days later I found another nobleman, sitting on the 
counter of our shoemakers' association, arguing with the 
manager, and giving an order for boots. 

It was just in the midst of all this that my brother 
came to live with us. I had already converted him, as 
I thought. He was a subscribing member of our 
Society, and dealt with our Associations ; and I had no 
doubt would now join the Council, and work actively 
in the new crusade. I knew how sound his judgment 
was, and that he never went back from a resolution once 
taken, and therefore was all the more eager to make 
sure of him, and, as a step in this direction, had already 
placed his name on committees, and promised his 
attendance. But I was doomed to disappointment. 
He attended one or two of our meetings, but I could 
not induce him to take any active part with us. At a 
distance of more than twenty years it is of course diffi- 
cult to recall very accurately what passed between us, 
but I can remember his reasons well enough to give the 
substance of them. And first, as he had formerly 



1 8z TRUE MANLINESS. 

objected to the violent language of the leaders of the 
Anti-Corn-Law agitation, so he now objected to what 
he looked upon as our extravagance. 

" You don't want to divide other people's property ? " 

"No," I answered. 

" Then why call yourselves Socialists ? " 

" But we couldn't help ourselves : other people called 
us so first." 

"Yes; but you needn't have accepted the name. 
Why acknowledge that the cap fitted ? " 

" Well, it would have been cowardly to back out. We 
borrow the ideas of these Frenchmen, of association as 
opposed to competition as the true law of industry ; 
and of organizing labor — of securing the laborer's 
position by organizing production and consumption — 
and it would be cowardly to shirk the name. It is only 
fools who know nothing about the matter, or people 
interested in the competitive system of trade, who 
believe, or say, that a desire to divide other people's 
property is of the essence of Socialism." 

" That may be very true : but nine-tenths of mankind, 
or at any rate, of Englishmen, come under one or the 
other of those categories. If you are called Socialists, 
you will never persuade the British public that this is 
not your object. There was no need to take the name. 
You have weight enough to carry already, without put- 
ting that on your shoulders." 

This was his first objection, and he proved to be right. 



REFORMS. 183 

At any rate, after some time we dropped the name, and 
the " Christian Socialist'' was changed into the "Journal 
of Association." English Socialists generally have in- 
stinctively avoided it ever since, and called themselves 
"co-operators," thereby escaping much abuse in the 
intervening years. And when I look back, I confess I 
do not wonder that we repelled rather than attracted 
men who, like my brother, were inclined theoretically to 
agree with us. For I am bound to admit that a strong 
vein of fanaticism and eccentricity ran through our 
ranks, which the marvellous patience, gentleness, and 
wisdom of our beloved president were not enough to 
counteract or control. Several of our most active and 
devoted members were also strong vegetarians, and 
phonetists. In a generation when beards and wide- 
awakes were looked upon as insults to decent society, 
some of us wore both, with a most heroic indifference to 
public opinion. In the same way, there was often a 
trenchant, and almost truculent, tone about us, which 
was well calculated to keep men of my brother's tem- 
perament at a distance. I rather enjoyed it myself, but 
learnt its unwisdom when I saw its effects on him, and 
others, who were inclined to join us, and would have 
proved towers of strength. It was right and necessary 
to denounce the evils of unlimited competition, and the 
falsehood of the economic doctrine of " every man for 
himself ; " but quite unnecessary, and therefore unwise, 
to speak of the whole system of trade as " the disgust- 



1 84 TRUE MANLINESS. 

ing vice of shop-keeping," as was the habit of several of 
our foremost and ablest members. 



XCVI. 

Hardy had a way of throwing life into what he was 
talking about, and, like many men with strong opinions, 
and passionate natures, either carried his hearers off 
their legs and away with him altogether, or roused every 
spark of combativeness in them. The latter was the 
effect which his lecture on the Punic Wars had on 
Tom. He made several protests as Hardy went on ; 
but Grey's anxious looks kept him from going fairly into 
action, till Hardy stuck the black pin, which represented 
Scipio, triumphantly in the middle of Carthage, and, 
turning round said, " And now for some tea, Grey, be- 
fore you have to turn out." 

Tom opened fire while the tea was brewing. 

" You couldn't say anything bad enough about aristoc- 
racies this morning, Hardy, and now to-night you are 
crowing over the success of the heaviest and crudest 
oligarchy that ever lived, and praising them up to the 
skies." 

" Hullo ! here's a breeze ! " said Hardy, smiling ; 
" but I rejoice, O Brown, in that they thrashed the ' 
Carthaginians, and not, as you seem to think, in that 
they, being aristocrats, thrashed the Carthaginians ; for 
oligarchs they were not at this time." 



REFORMS. 185 

"At any rate they answer to the Spartans in the 
struggle, and the Carthaginians to the Athenians ; and 
yet all your sympathies are with the Romans to-night in 
the Punic Wars, though they were with the Athenians 
before dinner." 

" I deny your position. The Carthaginians were 
nothing but a great trading aristocracy — with a glorious 
family or two I grant you, like that of Hannibal ; but, on 
the whole, a dirty, bargain-driving, buy-cheap-and-sell- 
dear aristocracy — of whom the world was well rid. 
They like the Athenians indeed ! Why, just look what 
the two people have left behind them " 

"Yes," interrupted Tom; "but we only know the 
Carthaginians through the reports of their destroyers. 
Your heroes trampled them out with hoofs of iron." 

"Do you think the Roman hoof could have trampled 
out their Homer if they ever had one ? " said Hardy. 
" The Romans conquered Greece too, remember." 

" But Greece was never so near beating them." 

" True. But I hold to my point. Carthage was the 
mother of all hucksters, compassing sea and land to 
sell her wares." 

" And no bad line of life for a nation. At least Eng- 
lishmen ought to think so." 

" No, they ought not ; at least if ' Punica fides ' is to 
be the rule of trade. Selling any amount of Brum- 
magem wares never did nation or man much good, and 
never will. Eh, Grey ? " 



186 TRUE MANLINESS. 

Grey winced at being appealed to, but remarked that 
he hoped the Church would yet be able to save England 
from the fate of Tyre and Carthage, the great trading 
nations of the old world : and then, swallowing his tea, 
and looking as if he had been caught robbing a hen- 
roost, he made a sudden exit, and hurried away out of 
college to the night-school. 

"What a pity he is so odd and shy," said Tom ; "I 
should so like to know more of him." 

" It is a pity. He is much better when he is alone 
with me. I think he has heard from some of the set 
that you are a furious Protestant, and sees an immense 
amount of stiff-neckedness in you." 

"But about England and Carthage," said Tom, shirk- 
ing the subject of his own peculiarities; "you don't 
really think us like them ? It gave me a turn to hear 
you translating ' Punica fides ' into Brummagem wares 
just now." 

" I think that successful trade is our rock ahead. 
The devil who holds new markets and twenty per cent, 
profits in his gift is the devil that England has most to 
fear from. ' Because of unrighteous dealings, and riches 
gotten by deceit, the kingdom is translated from one 
people to another,' said the wise man. Grey falls back 
on the Church, you see, to save the nation; but the 
Church he dreams of will never do it. Is there any 
that can ? There must be surely, or we have believed a 
lie. But this work of making trade righteous, of Chris- 



REFORMS. 187 

tianizing trade, looks like the very hardest the Gospel 
has ever had to take in hand — in England at any 
rate." 

Hardy spoke slowly and doubtfully, and paused as if 
asking for Tom's opinion. 

" I never heard it put in that way. I know very little 
of politics or the state of England. But come, now ; 
the putting down the slave-trade and compensating our 
planters, that shows that we are not sold to the trade- 
devil yet, surely." 

" I don't think we are. No, thank God, there are 
plenty of signs that we are likely to make a "good fight 
of it yet." 

XCVII. 

The newest school of philosophy preaches an " organ- 
ized religion," an hierachy of the best and ablest. In 
an inarticulate way the confession rises from the masses 
that they feel on every side of them the need of wise 
and strong government — of a will to which their will 
may loyally submit — before all other needs ; have been 
groping blindly after it this long while j begin to know 
that their daily life is in daily peril for want of it, in a 
country of limited land, air, and water, and practically 
unlimited wealth. But Democracy — how about Democ- 
racy ? We had thought a cry for it, and not for kings, 
God made or of any other kind, was the characteristic 



188 TRUE MANLINESS. 

of our time. Certainly kings, such as we have seen them, 
have not gained or deserved much reverence of late 
years, are not likely to be called for with any great 
earnestness by those who feel most need of guidance 
and deliverance, in the midst of the bewildering con- 
ditions and surroundings of our time and our life. 

Thirty years ago the framework of society went all 
to pieces over the greater part of Christendom, and the 
kings just ran away or abdicated, and the people, left 
pretty much to themselves, in some places made blind 
work of it. Solvent and well-regulated society caught 
a glimpse of that same "big black democracy," — the 
monster, the Frankenstein, as they hold him, at any 
rate the great undeniable fact of our time — a glimpse 
of him moving his huge limbs about, uneasily and 
blindly. Then, mainly by the help of broken pledges 
and bayonets, the so-called kings managed to get the 
gyves put on him again, and to shut him down in his 
underground prison. That was the sum of their work 
in the great European crisis ; not a thankworthy one 
from the people's point of view. However, society was 
supposed to be saved, and the "party of order," so 
called, breathed freely. No ; for the 1848 kind of king 
there is surely no audible demand anywhere. In Eng- 
land in that year we had our 10th of April, and muster 
of half a million special constables of the comfortable 
classes, with much jubilation over such muster, and 
mutual congratulations that we were not as other men, 



REFORMS. 189 

or even as these Frenchmen, Germans, and the like. 
Taken for what it was worth, let us admit that the jubi- 
lations did not lack some sort of justification. The 
10th of April muster may be perhaps accepted as a sign 
that the reverence for the constable's staff has not quite 
died out amongst us. But let no one think that for this 
reason democracy is one whit less inevitable in Eng- 
land than on the Continent, or that its sure and steady 
advance, and the longing for its coming, which all 
thoughtful men recognize, however little thev mav svm- 

CD O J 

pathize, with them, in the least incompatible with the 
equally manifest longing for what our people intend by 
this much-worshipped and much-hated name. 

For what does democracy mean to Englishmen ? 
Simply an equal chance for all ; a fair field for the best 
men, let them start from where they will, to get to the 
front; a clearance out of sham governors, and of unjust 
privilege, in every department of human affairs. It 
cannot be too often repeated, that they who suppose 
the bulk of our people want less government, or fear 
the man who "can rule and dare not lie," know little 
of them. Ask any representative of a popular constit- 
uency, or other man with the means of judging, what 
the people are ready for in this direction. He will tell 
you that, in spite perhaps of all he can say or do, they 
zuill go ior compulsory education, the organization of 
labor (including therein the sharp extinction of able- 
bodied pauperism), the utilization of public lands, and 



190 TRUE MANLINESS. 

other reforms of an equally decided character. That 
for these purposes they desire more government, not 
less ; will support with enthusiasm measures, the very 
thought of which takes away the breath and loosens the 
knees of ordinary politicians ; will rally with loyalty and 
trustfulness to men who will undertake these things 
with courage and singleness of purpose. 



XCVIII. 

The corners of Hardy's room were covered with 
sheets of paper of different sizes, pasted against the wall 
in groups. In the line of sight, from about the height 
of four to six feet, there was scarcely an inch of the 
original paper visible, and round each centre group there 
were outlying patches and streamers, stretching towards 
floor or ceiling, or away nearly to the bookcases or fire- 
place. 

" Well, don't you think it a great improvement on the 
old paper?" said Hardy. "I shall be out of rooms 
next term, and it will be a hint to the College that the 
rooms want papering. You're no judge of such matters, 
or I should ask you whether you don't see great artistic 
taste in the arrangement." 

" Why, they're nothing but maps, and lists of names 
and dates," said Tom, who had got up to examine the 
decorations. "And what in the world are all these 



GO VERNMENT. 191 

queer pins for ? " he went on, pulling a strong pin with 
a large red sealing-wax head out of the map nearest to 
him. 

" Hullo ! take care there ; what are you about ? " 
shouted Hardy, getting up and hastening to the corner. 
" Why, you irreverent beggar, those pins are the famous 
statesmen and warriors of Greece and Rome." 

" Oh, I beg your pardon ; I didn't know I was in such 
august company ; " saying which, Tom proceeded to 
stick the red-headed pin back into the wall. 

" Now, just look at that," said Hardy, taking the pin 
out from the place where Tom had stuck it. " Pretty 
doings there would be amongst them with your manage- 
ment. This pin is Brasidas ; you've taken him away 
from Naupactus, where he was watching the eleren 
Athenian galleys anchored under the temple of Apollo, 
and stuck him down right in the middle of the Pnyx, 
where he will be instantly torn in pieces by a mthless 
and reckless mob. You call yourself a Tory indeed ! 
However, 'twas always the same with you Tories ; cal- 
culating, cruel, and jealous. Use your leaders up, and 
throw them over — that's the golden rule of aristoc- 
racies." 

" Hang Brasidas," said Tom, laughing ; " stick him 
back at Naupactus again. Here, which is Cleon ? The 
scoundrel ! give me hold of him, and I'll put him in a 
hot berth." 

" That's he, with the yellow head. Let him alone, I 



1 92 TRUE MANLINESS. 

tell you, or all will be hopeless confusion when Grey 
comes for his lecture. We're only in the third year of 
the war." 

" I like your chaff about Tories sacrificing their great 
men," said Tom, putting his hands in his pockets to 
avoid temptation. " How about your precious democ- 
racy, old fellow ? Which is Socrates ? " 

"Here, the dear old boy! — this pin with the great 
gray head, in the middle of Athens, you see. I pride 
myself on my Athens. Here's the Piraeus and the long 
walls, and the hill of Mars. Isn't it as good as a 
picture ? " 

" Well, it is better than most maps, I think," said 
Tom ; " but you're not going to slip out so easily. I 
want to know whether your pet democracy did or did 
not murder Socrates." 

"I'm not bound to defend democracies. But look at 
my pins. It may be the natural fondness of a parent, 
but I declare they seem to me to have a great deal of 
character, considering the material. You'll guess them 
at once, I'm sure, if you mark the color and shape of 
the wax. This one now, for instance, who is he ? " 

" Alcibiades," answered Tom, doubtfully. 

" Alcibiades ! " shouted Hardy ; " you fresh from 
Rugby, and not know your Thucydides better than that. 
There's Alcibiades, that little purple-headed, foppish 
pin, by Socrates. This rusty colored one is that respect- 
able old stick-in-the-mud, Nicias." 



GOVERNMENT. 193 

" Well, but you've made Alcibiades nearly the smallest 
of the whole lot," said Tom. 

" So he was, to my mind," said Hardy ; " just the 
sort of insolent young ruffian whom I should have liked 
to buy at my price, and sell at his own. He must have 
been very like some of our gentlemen-commoners, with 
the addition of brains." 

" I should really think, though," said Tom, " it must 
be a capital plan for making you remember the history." 

" It is, I flatter myself. I've long had the idea, but I 
should never have worked it out and found the value of 
it but for Grey. I invented it to coach him in his his- 
tory. You see we are in the Grecian corner. Over 
there is the Roman. You'll find Livy and Tacitus 
worked out there, just as Herodotus and Thucydides are 
here ; and the pins are stuck for the Second Punic 
War, where we are just now. I shouldn't wonder if Grey 
got his first, after all, he's picking up so quick in my 
corners ; and says he never forgets any set of events 
when he has pricked them out with the pins." 



XCIX. 

The Reformation had to do its work in due course, in 
temporal as well as in spiritual things, in the visible as in 
the invisible world ; for the Stuart princes asserted in 
temporal matters the powers which the Pope had claimed 
in spiritual. They, too, would acknowledge the sane- 



i94 TRUE MANLINESS. 

tity of no law above the will of princes — would vindi- 
cate, even with the sword and scaffold, their own powers 
to dispense with laws. So the second great revolt of 
the English nation came, against all visible earthly sov- 
ereignty in things temporal. Puritanism arose, and 
Charles went to the block, and the proclamation went 
forth that henceforth the nation would have no king but 
Christ ; that he was the only possible king for the Eng- 
lish nation from that time forth, in temporal as well as 
spiritual things, and that his kingdom had actually 
come. The national conscience was not with the Puri- 
tans as it had been with Henry at the time of the Ref- 
ormation, but the deepest part of their protest has held 
its own, and gained strength ever since, from their clay 
to ours. The religious source and origin of it was, no 
doubt, thrust aside at the Revolution, but the sagacious 
statesmen of 1688 were as clear as the soldiers of Ire- 
ton and Ludlow in their resolve, that no human will 
should override the laws and customs of the realm. So 
they, too, required of their sovereigns that they should 
" solemnly promise and swear to govern the people of 
this kingdom of England, and the dominions thereto be- 
longing, according to the statutes in Parliament agreed 
on, and the laws and customs of the same ; . . . . 
that they will to the utmost of their power maintain the 
laws of God, the true profession of the Gospel, and the 
Protestant reformed religion established by law." The 
same protest in a far different form came forth again at 



GOVERNMENT. 195 

the great crisis at the end of the eighteenth century, 
when the revolutionary literature of France had set 
Europe in a blaze, and the idea of the rights of man 
had shrunk back, and merged in the will of the mob. 
Against this assertion of this form of self-will again the 
English nation took resolute ground. They had striven 
for a law which was above popes and kings, to which 
these must conform on pain of suppression. They 
strove for it now against mob-law, against popular will, 
openly avowing its own omnipotence, and making the 
tyrant's claim to do what was right in its own eyes. 
And so through our whole history the same thread has 
run. The nation, often confusedly and with stammer- 
ing accents, but still on the whole consistently, has 
borne the same witness as the Church, that as God is 
living and reigning there must be a law, the expression 
of his will, at the foundation of all human society, which 
priests, kings, rulers, people must discover, acknowl- 
edge, obey. 



C. 



Christians may acknowledge that, as a rule, and in 
the long run, the decision of a country, fairly taken, is 
likely to be right, and that the will of the people is 
likely to be more just and patient than that of any per- 
son or class. No one can honestly look at the history 
of our race in the last quarter of a century, to go no 



196 TRUE MANLINESS. 

farther back, and not gladly admit the weight of evi- 
dence in favor of this view. There is no great question 
of principle which has arisen in politics here, in which 
the great mass of the nation has not been from the first 
on that which has been at last acknowledged as the 
right side. In America, to take one great example, the 
attitude of the Northern people from first to last, in the 
great civil war, will make proud the hearts of English- 
speaking men as long as their language lasts. 



CI. 



The real public opinion of a nation, expressing its 
deepest conviction ( as distinguished from what is ordi- 
narily called public opinion, the first cry of professional 
politicians and journalists, which usually goes wrong,) 
is undoubtedly entitled to very great respect. But 
after making all fair allowances, no honest man, how- 
ever warm a democrat he may be, can shut his eyes to 
the facts which stare him in the face at home, in our 
colonies, in the United States, and refuse to acknowl- 
edge that the will of the majority in a nation, ascertained 
by the best processes yet known to us, is not always or 
altogether just, or consistent, or stable ; that the delib- 
erate decisions of the people are not unfrequently 
tainted by ignorance, or passion, or prejudice. 

Are we, then, to rest contented with this ultimate 



GOVERNMENT. 197 

regal power, to resign ourselves to the inevitable, and 
admit that for us, here at last in this nineteenth century, 
there is nothing higher or better to look for ; and if we 
are to have a king at all, it must be king people or king 
mob, according to the mood in which our section of 
collective humanity happens to be ? Surely we are not 
prepared for this any more than the Pope is. Many of 
us feel that Tudors, and Stuarts, and Oliver Cromwell, 
and cliques of Whig or Tory aristocrats, may have been 
bad enough ; but that any tyranny under which England 
has groaned in the past has been light by the side of 
what we ma}' come to, if we are to carry out the new 
political gospel to its logical conclusion, and surrender 
ourselves to government by the counting of heads, 
pure and simple. 

But if we will not do this is there any alternative, 
since we repudiate personal government, but to fall back 
on the old Hebrew and Christian faith, that the nations 
are ruled by a living, present, invisible King, whose will 
is perfectly righteous and loving, the same yesterday, 
to-day, and forever ? It is beside the question to urge 
that such a faith throws us back on an invisible power, 
and that we must have visible rulers. Of course we 
must have visible rulers, even after the advent of the 
" confederate social republic of Europe." When the 
whole people is king it must have viceroys like other 
monarchs. But is public opinion visible ? Can we see 
" collective humanity ? " Is it easier for princes or states- 



198 TRUE MANLINESS. 

men — for any man or men upon whose shoulders the 
government rests — to ascertain the will of the people 
than the will of God ? Another consideration meets us 
at once, and that is, that this belief is assumed in our 
present practice. Not to insist upon the daily usage in 
all Christian places of worship and families throughout 
the land, the Parliament of the country opens its daily 
sittings with the most direct confession of this faith 
which words can express, and prays — addressing God, 
and not public opinion, or collective humanity — " Thy 
kingdom come. Thy will be done." Surely it were better 
to get rid of this solemn usage as a piece of cant, which 
must demoralize the representatives of the nation, if we 
mean nothing particular by it, and either recast our form 
of prayer, substituting "the people," or what else we 
please, for " God," or let the whole business alone, as 
one which passes man's understanding. If we really 
believe that a nation has no means of finding out God's 
will, it is hypocritical and cowardly to go on praying 
that it may be done. 

But it will be said, assuming all that is asked, what 
practical difference can it possibly make in the govern- 
ment of nations ? Admit as pointedly as you can, by 
profession and by worship, and honestly believe, that a 
Divine will is ruling in the world, and in each nation, 
what will it effect ? Will it alter the course of events one 
iota, or the acts of any government or governor. 
Would not a Neapolitan Bourbon be just as ready to 



G O VERNMENT. 1 99 

make it his watchword as any English Alfred ! Might 
not a committee of public safety placard the scaffold 
with a declaration of this faith ? It is a contention for 
a shadow. 

Is it so ? Does not ever} 7 man recognize in his own 
life, and in his own observation of the world around 
him, the enormous and radical difference between the 
two principles of action and the results which they 
bring about ? What man do we reckon worthy of honor, 
and delight to obey and follow — him who asks, when 
he has to act, what will A, B, and C say to this ? or him 
who asks, is this right, true, just, in harmony with the 
will of God. Don*t we despise ourselves when we give 
way to the former tendency, or in other words, when we 
admit the sovereignty of public opinion ? Don't we feel 
that we are in the right and manly path when we follow 
the latter ? And if this be true of private men, it must 
hold in the case of those who are in authority. 

Those rulers, whatever name they may go by, who 
turn to what constituents, leagues, the press are saying 
or doing, to guide them as to the course they are to 
follow, in the faith that the will of the majority is the 
ultimate and only possible arbiter, will never deliver or 
strengthen a nation however skilful they may be in 
occupying its best places. 



200 TRUE MANLINESS. 

CIL 

All the signs of our time tell us that the day of 
earthly kings has gone by, and the advent to power of 
the great body of the people, those who live by manual 
labor, is at hand. Already a considerable percentage 
of them are as intelligent and provident as the classes 
above them, and as capable of conducting affairs, and 
administering large interests successfully. In England, 
the co-operative movement and the organization of 
the trade societies should be enough to prove this, to 
any one who has eyes, and is open to conviction. In an- 
other generation that number will have increased ten- 
fold, and the sovereignty of the country will virtually 
pass into their hands. Upon their patriotism and good 
sense the fortunes of the kingdom will depend as 
directly and absolutely as they have ever depended on 
the will of earthly king or statesman. It is vain to 
blink the fact that democracy is upon us, that " new 
order of society which is to be founded by labor for 
labor," and the only thing for wise men to do is to look 
it in the face, and see how the short intervening years 
may be used to the best advantage. Happily for us, 
the task has been already begun in earnest. Our 
soundest and wisest political thinkers are all engaged 
upon the great and inevitable change, whether they 
dread, or exult in the prospect. Thus far, too, they all 
agree that the great danger of the future lies in that very 



GOVERNMENT. 201 

readiness of the people to act in great masses, and to 
get rid of personal and individual responsibility, which 
is the characteristic of the organizations by which they 
have gained, and secured, their present position. Nor 
is there any danger as to how this danger is to be met. 
Our first aim must be to develop to the utmost the sense 
of personal and individual responsibility. 

But how is this to be done ? To whom are men 
wielding great powers to be taught that they are re- 
sponsible ? If they can learn that there in still a King 
ruling in England through them, whom if they will fear 
they need fear no other power in earth or heaven, whom 
if they can love and trust they will want no other guide 
or helper, all will be well, and we may look for a reign 
of justice in England such as she has never seen yet, 
whatever form our government may take. But, in any 
case, those who hold the old faith will still be sure that 
the order of God's kingdom will not change. If the 
kings of the earth are passing away, because they have 
never acknowledged the order which was established for 
them, the conditions on which they were set in high 
places, those who succeed them will have to come under 
the same order, and the same conditions. When the 
great body of those who have done the hard work of 
the world, and got little enough of its wages hitherto — 
the real stuff of which every nation is composed — have 
entered on their inheritance, they may sweep away many 
things, ana make short work with thrones and kings. 



2 02 TRUE MANLINESS. 

But there is one throne which they cannot pull clown 

— the throne of righteousness, which is over all the 
nations ; and one King whose rule they cannot throw off 

— the Son of Gocl and Son of Man, who will judge 
them as he has judged all kings and all governments 
before them. 



cm. 

Kings, priests, judges, whatever men succeed to, or 
usurp, or are thrust into power, come immediately under 
that eternal government which the God of the nation 
has established, and the order of which cannot be vio- 
lated with impunity. Every ruler who ignores or defies 
it saps the national life and prosperity, and brings 
trouble on his country, sometimes swiftly, but always 
surely. There is the perpetual presence of a King, with 
whom rulers and people must come to a reckoning in 
every national crisis and convulsion, and who is no less 
present when the course of affairs is quiet and prosper- 
ous. The greatest and wisest men of the nation are 
those in whom this faith burns most strongly. Elijah's 
solemn opening, " As the Lord liveth, before whom I 
stand ; " David's pleading, " Whither shall I go from 
thy Spirit, or whither shall I flee from thy presence ? " 
— his confession that in heaven or hell, or the 
uttermost parts of the sea, "there also shall thy 
hand lead, and thy right hand shall guide me" — are 



AMBITION. 203 

only well-known instances of a universal consciousness 
which never wholly leaves men or nations, however 
much they may struggle to get rid of it. 



CIV. 

" Who is that who has just come in, in beaver ? " said 
Tom, touching the next man to him. 

" Oh, don't you know ? That's Blake ; he's the most 
wonderful fellow in Oxford," answered his neighbor. 

" How do you mean ? " said Tom. 

" Why, he can do everything better than almost any- 
body, and without any trouble at all. Miller was obliged 
to have him in the boat last year though he never 
trained a bit. Then he's in the eleven, and is a wonder- 
ful rider, and tennis-player, and shot." 

" Aye, and he's so awfully clever with it all," joined 
in the man on the other side. " He'll be a safe first, 
though I don't believe he reads more than you or I. 
He can write songs, too, as fast as you can talk nearly, 
and sings them wonderfully." 

" Is he of our College, then ?" 

" Yes, of course, or he couldn't have been in our boat 
last year." 

" But I don't think I ever saw him in chapel or hall." 

" Xo, I dare say not. He hardly ever goes to either, 
and yet he manages never to get hauled up much, no 



204 TRUE MANLINESS. 

one knows how. He never gets up now till the after- 
noon, and sits up nearly all night playing cards with the 
fastest fellows, or going round singing glees at three or 
four in the morning." 

Tom looked with great interest at the admirable 
Crichton of St. Ambrose's ; and, after watching him a 
few minutes, said in a low tone to his neighbor : 

" How wretched he looks ! I never saw a sadder 
face." 

Poor Blake! one can't help calling him "poor," 
although he himself would have winced at it more than 
at any other name you could have called him. You 
might have admired, feared, or wondered at him, and he 
would have been pleased ; the object of his life was to 
raise such feelings in his neighbors ; but pity was the 
last which he would have liked to excite. 

He was indeed a wonderfully gifted fellow, full of all 
sorts of energy and talent, and power and tenderness ; 
and yet, as his face told only too truly to any one who 
watched him when he was exerting himself in society, 
one of the most wretched men in the College. He had 
a passion for success — for beating everybody else in 
whatever he took in hand, and that, too, without seem- 
ing to make any great effort himself. The doing a 
thing well and thoroughly gave him no satisfaction 
unless he could feel that he was doing it better and 
more easily than A, B, or C, and that they felt and ac- 
knowledged this. He had had his full swing of success 



AMBITION. 205 

for two years, and now the Nemesis was coming. 

For, although not an extravagant man, many of the 
pursuits in which he had eclipsed all rivals were far be- 
yond the means of any but a rich one, and Blake was 
not rich. He had a fair allowance, but by the end of 
his first year was considerably in debt, and, at the time 
we are speaking of, the whole pack of Oxford tradesmen, 
into whose books he had got (having smelt out the 
leanness of his expectations), were upon him, besieging 
him for payment. This miserable and constant annoy- 
ance was wearing his soul out. This was the reason 
why his oak was sported, and he was never seen till 
the afternoons, and turned night into day. He was too 
proud to come to an understanding with his persecutors, 
even had it been possible ; and now, at his sorest need, 
his whole scheme of life was failing him ; his love of 
success was turning into ashes in his mouth ; he felt 
much more disgust than pleasure at his triumphs over 
other men, and yet the habit of striving for such suc- 
cesses, notwithstanding its irksomeness, was too strong 
to be resisted. 

Poor Blake ! he was living on from hand to mouth, 
flashing out with all his old brilliancy and power, and 
forcing himself to take the lead in whatever company 
he might be ; but utterly lonely and depressed when by 
himself — reading feverishly in secret, in a desperate 
effort to retrieve all by high honors and a fellowship. 



206 TRUE MANLINESS. 

As Tom said to his neighbors, there was no sadder face 
than his to be seen in Oxford. 



CV. 

One of the moralists whom we sat under in my youth 

— was it the great Richard Swiveller, or Mr. Stiggins ? 

— says : " We are born in a vale, and must take the 
consequences of being found in such a situation." 
These consequences, I for one am ready to encounter. 
I pity people who weren't found in a vale. I don't 
mean a flat country, but a vale ; that is a flat country 
bounded by hills. The having your hill always in view 
if you choose to turn towards him, that's the essence of 
a vale. There he is for ever in the distance, your friend 
and companion ; you never lose him as you do in hilly 
districts. 



CVI. 

All dwellers in and about London are, alas, too well 
acquainted with that never-to-be-enough-hated change 
which we have to undergo once, at least, in every spring. 
As each succeeding winter wears away, the same thing 
happens to us. 

For some time we do not trust the fair lengthening 
days, and cannot believe that the dirty pair of sparrows 



DOUBT. 207 

who live opposite our window are really making love and 
going to build, notwithstanding all their twittering. 
But morning after morning rises fresh and gentle ; there 
is no longer any vice in the air ; we drop our over- 
coats ; we rejoice in the green shoots which the privet- 
hedge is making in the square garden, and hail the re- 
turning tender-pointed leaves of the plane-trees as 
friends \ we go out of our way to walk through Covent 
Garden Market to see the ever-brightening show of 
flowers from the happy country. 

This state of things goes on sometimes for a few days 
only, sometimes for weeks, till we make sure that we 
are safe for this spring at any rate. Don't we wish we 
may get it ! Sooner or later, but sure — sure as Christ- 
mas bills, or the income-tax, or anything, if there be 
anything surer than these — comes the morning when 
we are suddenly conscious as soon as we rise that there 
is something the matter. We do not feel comfortable 
in our clothes ; nothing tastes quite as it should at 
breakfast ; though the clay looks bright enough, there is 
a fierce dusty taint about it as we look out through win- 
dows, which no instinct now prompts us to throw open, 
as it has done every day for the last month. 

But it is only when we open our doors and issue into 
the street, that the hateful reality comes right home to 
us. All moisture, and softness, and pleasantness has 
gone clean out of the air since last night ; we seem to 
inhale yards of horsehair instead of satin ; our skins dry 



208 TRUE MANLINESS. 

up j our eyes, and hair, and whiskers, and clothes are 
soon filled with loathsome dust, and our nostrils with 
the reek of the great city. We glance at the weather- 
cock on the nearest steeple, and see that it points N.E. 
And so long as the change lasts, we carry about with us 
a feeling of anger and impatience as though we person- 
ally were being ill-treated. We could have borne with 
it well enough in November • it would have been 
natural, and all in the day's work in March ; but now, 
when Rotten-row is beginning to be crowded, when long 
lines of pleasure-vans are leaving town on Monday 
mornings for Hampton Court or the poor remains of 
dear Epping Forrest, when the exhibitions are open or 
about to open, when the religious public is up, or on its 
way up, for May meetings, when the Thames is already 
sending up faint warnings of what we may expect as 
soon as his dirty old life's blood shall have been 
thoroughly warmed up, and the Ship, and Trafalgar, and 
Star and Garter are in full swing at the antagonist poles 
of the cockney system, we do feel that this blight which 
has come over us and everything is an insult, and that 
while it lasts, as there is nobody who can be made par- 
ticularly responsible for it, we are justified in going 
about in general disgust, and ready to quarrel with any- 
body we may meet on the smallest pretext. 

This sort of east-windy state is perhaps the best 
physical analogy for certain mental ones through which 
most of us pass. The real crisis over, we drift into the 



DOUBT. 209 

skirts of the storm, and lay rolling under bare poles, 
comparatively safe, but without any power as yet to get 
the ship well in hand, and make her obey her helm. 
The storm may break over us again at any minute, and 
find us almost as helpless as ever. 



CVII. 

Amongst other distractions which Tom tried at one 
crisis of his life, was reading. For three or four days 
running, he really worked hard — very hard, if we were 
to reckon by the number of hours he spent in his own 
rooms over his books with his oak sported — hard, even 
though we should only reckon by results. For, though 
scarcely an hour passed that he was not balancing on 
the hind legs of his chair with a vacant look in his eyes, 
and thinking of anything but Greek roots or Latin 
constructions, yet on the whole he managed to get 
through a good deal, and one evening, for the first time 
since his quarrel with Hardy, felt a sensation of real 
comfort — it hardly amounted to pleasure — as he closed 
his Sophocles some hour or so after hall, having just 
finished the last of the Greek plays which he meant to 
take in for his first examination. He leaned back in 
his chair and sat for a few minutes, letting his thoughts 
follow their own bent. They soon took to going wrong, 
and he jumped up in fear lest he should be drifting back 



2io TRUE MANLINESS. 

into the black stormy sea, in the trough of which he had 
been laboring so lately, and which he felt he was by no 
means clear of yet. At first he caught up his cap and 
gown as though he were going out. There was a wine 
party at one of his acquaintance's rooms ; or, he could 
go and smoke a cigar in the pool-room, or at any one of 
the dozen other places. On second thoughts, however, 
he threw his academicals back on to the sofa, and went 
to his bookcase. The reading had paid so well that 
evening that he resolved to go on with it. He had no 
particular object in selecting one book more than 
another, and so took down carelessly the first that came 
to hand. 

It happened to be a volume of Plato, and opened of 
its own accord in the "Apology." He glanced at a 
few lines. What a flood of memories they called up ! 
This was almost the last book he had read at school ; 
and teacher, and friends, and lofty oak-shelved library 
stood out before him at once. Then the blunders that 
he himself and others had made rushed through his 
mind, and he almost burst into a laugh as he wheeled 
his chair round to the window, and began reading where 
he had opened, encouraging every thought of the old 
times when he first read that marvellous defence, and 
throwing himself back into them with all his might. 
And still, as he read, forgotten words of wise comment, 
and strange thoughts of wonder and longing, came back 
to him. The great truth which he had been led to the 



DOUBT. 



211 



brink of in those early clays rose in all its awe and all 
its attractiveness before him. He leant back in his 
chair, and gave himself up to his thought ; and how 
strangely that thought bore on the struggle which had 
been raging in him of late • how an answer seemed to 
be trembling to come out of it to all the cries, now 
defiant, now plaintive, which had gone out of his heart 
in this time of trouble ! For his thought was of that 
spirit, distinct from himself, and yet communing with his 
inmost soul, always dwelling in him, knowing him better 
than he knew himself, never misleading him, always 
leading him to light and truth, of which the old philoso- 
pher spoke. " The old heathen, Socrates, did actually 
believe that — there can be no question about it;" he 
thought, " Has not the testimony of the best men 
through these two thousand years borne witness that he 
was right — that he did not believe a lie ! That was 
what we were told. Surely I don't mistake ! Were we 
not told, too, or did I dream it, that what was true for 
him is true for every man — forme? That there is a 
spirit dwelling in me, striving with me, ready to lead me 
into all truth if I will submit to his guidance ? 

" Ah ! submit, submit, there's the rub ! Give yourself 
up to his guidance ! Throw up the reins, and say you've 
made a mess of it. Well, why not? Haven't I made 
a mess of it ? Am I fit to hold the reins? 

"Not I," — he got up and began walking about his 
rooms — " I give it up." 



2i2 TRUE MANLINESS. 

" Give it up ! " he went on presently ; " yes, but to 
whom ? Not to the daemon, spirit, whatever it was, 
who took up his abode in the old Athenian — at least, 
so he said, and so I believe. No, no ! Two thousand 
years and all that they have seen have not passed over 
the world to leave us just where he was left. We want 
no daemons or spirits. And yet the old heathen was 
guided right, and what can a man want more ? and 
who ever wanted guidance more than I now — here — 
in this room — at this minute? I give up the reins ; 
who will take them ? " And so there came on him one of 
those seasons when a man's thoughts cannot be followed 
in words. A sense of awe came upon him, and over 
him, and wrapped him round ; awe at a presence of 
which he was becoming suddenly conscious, into which 
he seemed to have wandered, and yet which he felt must 
have been there, around him, in his own heart and soul, 
though he knew it not. There was hope and longing in 
his heart mingling with the fear of that presence, but 
withal the old reckless and daring feeling which he knew 
so well, still bubbling up untamed, untamable it seemed 
to him. 

CVIII. 

Men and women occupied with the common work of 
life — who are earning their bread in the sweat of their 
brows, and marrying, and bringing up children, and 



DOUBT. 213 

struggling, and sinning, and repenting — feel that cer- 
tain questions which school- men are discussing are some- 
how their questions. Not indeed in form, for not one 
in a thousand of the persons whose minds are thus dis- 
turbed care to make themselves acquainted with the 
forms and modes of theological controversies. If they 
try to do so, they soon throw them aside with impatience. 
They feel, " No, it is not this. We care not what may 
be said about ideology, or multitudinism, or evidential 
vie\\%, or cogenogonies. At the bottom of all this we 
suspect — nay, we know — there is a deeper strife, a 
strife about the very foundations of faith and human 
life. We want to know from you learned persons, 
whether (as we have been told from our infancy) there 
is a faith for mankind, for us as well as for you, for the 
millions of our own countrymen, and in all Christian 
and heathen lands, who find living their lives a sore 
business, and have need of all the light they can get to 
help them." 

It cannot be denied. The sooner we face the fact, 
the better. This is the question, and it has to be an- 
swered now, bv us living Englishmen and English- 
women ; the deepest question which man has to do 
with, and yet — or rather, therefore — one which every 
toiling man must grapple with, for the sake of his own 
honesty, of his own life. 



214 TRUE MANLINESS. 

CIX. 

For many years I have been thrown very much 
into the society of young men of all ranks. I spend a 
great part of my time with them, I like being with them, 
and I think they like being with me. I know well, there- 
fore, how rare anything like a living faith — a faith in 
and by which you can live, and for which you would 
die — is amongst them. I know that it is becoming 
rarer every day. I find it every day more difficult to get 
them to speak on the subject : they will not do so un- 
less you drive them to it. 

I feel deeply that for the sake of England they must 
be driven to it, and therefore that it is the bounden duty 
of every man who has any faith himself, and who has a 
chance of being listened to by them, to speak out man- 
fully what he has to say, concealing nothing, disguis- 
ing nothing, and leaving the issue to God. 



CX. 

That which has been called the " negative theology," 
has been spreading rapidly these last few years, though 
for the most part silently. In the first instance it may 
have been simply " a recoil from some of the doctrines 
which are to be heard at church and chapel ; a distrust 
of the old arguments for, or proofs of, a miraculous rev- 



DOUBT. 215 

elation ; and a misgiving as to the authority, or extent 
of the authority of the Scriptures." But as was sure to 
be the case, the "negative theology" could not stop, and 
has not stopped here. Men who have come across these 
recoils, distrusts, misgivings, will soon find, if they are 
honest and resolute with themselves, that there is an- 
other doubt underlying all these, a doubt which they 
may turn from in horror when it is first whispered in 
their hearts, but which will come back again and again. 
That doubt is whether there is a God at all, or rather, 
whether a living, personal God, thinking, acting, and 
ruling in this world in which we are, has ever revealed 
Himself to man. 

This is the one question of our time, and of all 
times ; upon the answer which nations or men can give 

to it hang life and death One cannot stand 

upon a simple negation. The world is going on turn- 
ing as it used to do, night succeeding day and genera- 
tion generation ; nations are waking into life, or falling 
into bondage • there is a deal of wonderful work of one 
sort or another going on in it, and you and I in our little 
corner have our own share of work to get done as well 
as we can. If you put out my old light, some light or 
other I must have, and you would wish me to have. 
What is it to be ? 

You will answer, probably, that I have touched the 
heart of the matter in putting my question. Night fol- 
lows day, and generation, generation. All things are 



216 TRUE MANLINESS. 

founded on a "permanent order," "self-sustaining and 
self-evolving powers pervade all nature." Of this order 
and these powers we are getting to know more every 
day j when we know them perfectly, man, the colossal 
man, will have reached the highest development of 
which he is capable. We need not trouble ourselves 
about breaking them, or submitting to them ; some of 
you would add, for we cannot either break them or sub- 
mit to them. They will fulfil themselves. It is they, 
these great generalizations, which are alone acting in, 
and ruling the world. We, however eccentric our 
actions may be, however we may pride ourselves on 
willing and working, are only simple links in the chain. 
A general law of average orders the unruly wills and af- 
fections of sinful men. 

But here I must ask, on what is this permanent order, 
on what are these laws which you tell me of, founded ? 
I acknowledge a permanent order, physical laws, as 
fully as you can, but believe them to be expressions 
of a living and a righteous will ; I believe a holy and 
true God to be behind them, therefore I can sit down 
humbly, and try to understand them, and when I under- 
stand, to obey. Are the permanent order, the laws you 
speak of, founded on a will ? If so, on whose will ? If 
on the will of a God, of what God ? Of a God who has 
revealed His character, His purpose, Himself, to you ? 
If so, where, how, when ? 

But if you tell me that these laws, this order, are not 



DOUBT. 217 

founded on any living will, or that you do not know 
that they are, then I say you are holding out to me " an 
iron rule which guides to nothing and ends in nothing 
— which may be possible to the logical understanding, 
but is not possible to the spirit of man " — and you are 
telling me, since worship is a necessity of my being, to 
worship that. In the name and in the strength of a 
man, and a man's will I utterly reject and defy your 
dead laws, for dead they must be. They may grind me 
to powder, but I have that in me which is above them, 
which will own no obedience to them. Dead laws are, 
so far as I can see, just what you and I and all mankind 
have been put into this world to fight against. Call 
them laws of nature if you will, I do not care. Take 
the commonest, the most universal ; is it or is it not by 
the law of nature that the ground brings forth briers and 
all sorts of noxious and useless weeds if you let it 
alone ? If it is by the law of nature, am I to obey the 
law, or to dig my garden and root out the weeds? 
Doubtless I shall get too old to dig, and shall die, and 
the law will remain, and the weeds grow over my garden 
and over my grave, but for all that I decline to obey the 
law. 

I see a law of death w r orking all around me ; I feel it 
in my own members. Is this one of your laws, a part 
of the " permanent order," which is to serve me instead 
of the God of my fathers ? If it be I mean to resist it 
to the last gasp. I utterly hate it. No noble or true 



218 TRUE MANLINESS. 

work is done in this world except in direct defiance of 
it. What is to become of the physician's work, of every 
effort at sanitary reform, of every attempt at civilizing 
and raising the poor and the degraded, if we are to sit 
down and submit ourselves to this law ? 

Am I never to build a house, out of respect to the 
law of gravitation ? Sooner or later the law will assert 
itself, and my house will tumble down. Nevertheless I 
will conquer the law for such space as I can. In short, 
I will own no dead law as my master. Dead laws I 
will hate always, and in all places, with all my heart, 
with all my soul, with all my mind, and with all my 
strength. 

CXI. 

We ought to welcome with all our hearts the searching 
scrutiny, which students and philosophers of all 
Christian nations, and of all shades of belief, whether 
Christian or not, are engaged upon, as to the facts on 
which our faith rests. The more thorough that scrutiny 
is the better should we be pleased. We may not 
wholly agree with the last position which the ablest in- 
vestigators have laid down, that unless the truth of the 
history of our Lord — the facts of his life, death, 
resurrection, and ascension — can be proved by ordi- 
nary historical evidence, applied according to the most 
approved and latest methods, Christianity must be given 



CHRISTIANITY. 2 1 9 

up as not true. We know that our own certainty as to 
these facts does not rest on a critical historical investi- 
gation, while we rejoice that such an investigation 
should be made by those who have leisure, and who are 
competent for it. At the same time, as we also know 
that the methods and principles of historical investiga- 
tion are constantly improving and being better under- 
stood, and that the critics of the next generation will 
work, in all human likelihood, at as great an advantage 
in this inquiry over those who are now engaged in it, as 
our astronomers and natural philosophers enjoy over 
Newton and Franklin — and as new evidence may turn 
up any day which may greatly modify their conclusions — ■ 
we cannot suppose that there is the least chance of their 
settling the controversy in our time. Nor, even if we 
thought them likely to arrive at definite conclusions, can 
we consent to wait the results of their investigations, 
important and interesting as these will be. Granting 
then cheerfully, that if these facts on the study of which 
they are engaged are not facts — if Christ was not cru- 
cified, and did not rise from the dead, and ascend to 
God his father — there has been no revelation, and 
Christianity will infallibly go the way of all lies, 
either under their assaults or those of their successors 
— they must pardon us if even at the cost of being 
thought and called fools for our pains, we deliberately 
elect to live our lives on the contrary assumption. It is 
useless to tell us that we know nothing of these things, 



220 TRUE MANLINESS. 

that we can know nothing until their critical examina- 
tion is over ; we can only say : " Examine away ; but 
we do know something of this matter, whatever you may 
assert to the contrary, and, mean to live on the knowl- 
edge." 

But while we cannot suspend our judgment on the 
question until we know how the critics and scholars have 
settled it, we must do justice, before passing on, to the 
single-mindedness, the reverence, the resolute desire 
for the truth before all things, wherever the search for 
it may land them which characterizes many of those who 
are no longer of our faith, and are engaged in this in- 
quiry, or have set it aside as hopeless, and are working 
at other tasks. The great advance of natural science 
within the last few years, and the devotion with which 
many of our ablest and best men are throwing them- 
selves into this study, are clearing the air in all the 
higher branches of human thought and making possible 
a nation, and in the end a world, of truthful men — that 
blessedest result of all the strange conflicts and prob- 
lems of the age, which the wisest men have foreseen 
in their most hopeful moods. In this grand movement 
even those who are nominally, and believe themselves 
to be really, against us, are for us : all at least who are 
truthful and patient workers. For them, too, the spirit 
of all truth, and patience, and wisdom is leading ; and 
their strivings and victories — aye, and their backslid- 
ings and reverses — are making clearer day by day that 



CHRISTIANITY. 2 2 1 

revelation of the kingdom of God in nature, through 
which it would seem that our generation, and those 
which are to follow us, will be led back again to that 
higher revelation of the kingdom of God in man. 



The ideal American, as he has been painted for us of 
late, is a man who has shaken off the yoke of definite 
creeds, while retaining their moral essence, and finds 
the highest sanctions needed for the conduct of human 
life in experience tempered by common sense. Frank- 
lin, for instance, is generally supposed to have reached 
this ideal by anticipation, and there is a half-truth in the 
supposition. But whoever will study this great master 
of practical life will acknowledge that it is only super- 
ficially true, and that if he never lifts us above the earth 
or beyond the dominion of experience and common 
sense, he retained himself a strong hold on the invisible 
which underlies it, and would have been the first to ac- 
knowledge that it was this which enabled him to control 
the accidents of birth, education, and position, and to 
earn the eternal gratitude and reverence of the great 
nation over whose birth he watched so wisely, and 
whose character he did so much to form. 



222 TRUE MANLINESS. 

CXII. 

" From one thing to another," said Tom, " they got to 
cathedrals, and one of them called St. Paul's ' a dis- 
grace to a Christian city.' I couldn't stand that, you 
know. I was always bred to respect St. Paul's ; weren't 
you ? " 

" My education in that • line was neglected," said 
Hardy, gravely. " And so you took up the cudgels for 
St. Paul's ? " 

"Yes, I plumped out that St. Paul's was the finest 
cathedral in England. You'd have thought I had said 
that lying was one of the cardinal virtues — one or two 
just treated me to a sort of pitying sneer, but my neigh- 
bors were down upon me with a vengeance. I stuck to 
my text though, and they drove me into saying I liked 
the RatclifTe more than any building in Oxford • which 
I don't believe I do, now I come to think of it. So 
when they couldn't get me to budge for their talk, they 
took to telling me that everybody who knew anything 
about church architecture was against me — of course 
meaning that I knew nothing about it — for the matter 
of that, I don't mean to say that I do." Tom paused ; 
it had suddenly occurred to him that there might be 
some reason in the rough handling he had got. 

" But what did you say to the authorities ? " said 
Hardy, who was greatly amused. 

"Said I didn't care a straw for them," said Tom; 



CHRISTIANITY. 223 

" there was no right or wrong in the matter, and I had as 
good a right to my opinion as Pugin — or whatever his 
name is — and the rest." 

"What heresy ! " said Hardy, laughing ; "you caught 
it for that, I suppose ? " 

" Didn't I ! They made such a noise over it, that the 
men at the other end of the table stopped talking (they 
were all freshmen at our end), and when they found 
what was up, one of the older ones took me in hand, 
and I got a lecture about the middle ages, and the 
monks. I said I thought England was well rid of the 
monks ; and then we got on to Protestantism, and fast- 
ing, and apostolic succession, and passive obedience, 
and I don't know what all ! I only know I was tired 
enough of it before coffee came ; but I couldn't go, you 
know, with all of them on me at once, could I ? " 

" Of course not • you were like the six thousand un- 
conquerable British infantry at Albuera. You held your 
position by sheer fighting, suffering fearful loss." 

" Well," said Tom, laughing, for he had talked him- 
self into good humor again. " I dare say I talked a deal 
of nonsense ; and, when I come to think it over, a good 
deal of what some of them said had something in it. I 
should like to hear it again quietly \ but there were 
others sneering and giving themselves airs, and that 
puts a fellow's back up." 

" Yes," said Hardy, " a good many of the weakest and 
vainest men who come up take to this sort of thing now. 



224 TRUE MANLINESS. 

They can do nothing themselves, and get a sort of plat- 
form by going in for the High Church business from 
which to look down on their neighbors." 

" That's just what I thought," said Tom ; " they tried 
to push mother Church, mother Church, down my throat 
at every turn. I'm as fond of the Church as any of 
them, but I don't want to be jumping up on her back every 
minute, like a sickly chicken getting on the old hen's 
back to warm its feet whenever the ground is cold, and 
fancying himself taller than all the rest of the brood." 



CXIII. 

I have spoken of that which I cannot believe ; let 
me speak to you now of that which I do believe, of 
that which I hold to be a faith, the faith, the only faith 
for mankind. Do not turn from it because it seems to 
be egotistic. I can only speak for myself, for what I 
know in my own heart and conscience. While I keep 
to this, I can speak positively, and I wish above all 
things to speak positively. 

I was bred as a child and as a boy to look upon 
Christ as the true and rightful King and Head of our 
race, the Son of God and the Son of man. When I 
came to think for myself I found the want, the longing 
for a perfectly righteous king and head, the deepest of 
which I was conscious — for a being in whom I could 
rest, who was in perfect sympathy with me and all men. 



CHRISTIANITY. 225 

"Like as the hart panteth after the water-brooks, so 
longeth my soul after thee, O God. My soul is athirst 
for God, yea, even for the living God," — these, and the 
like sayings of the Psalmist, began to have a meaning 
for me. 

Then the teaching which had sunk into me uncon- 
sciously rose up and seemed to meet this longing. If 
that teaching were true, here was He for whom I was in 
search. I turned to the records of His life and death. 
I read and considered as well as I could, the character 
of Christ, what he said of himself and his work; his 
teachings, his acts, his sufferings. Then I found that 
this was indeed He. Here was the Head, the King, 
for whom I had longed. The more I read and thought 
the more absolutely sure I became of it. This is He. 
I wanted no other then, I have never wanted another 
since. Him I can look up to and acknowledge with the 
most perfect loyalty. He satisfies me wholly. There is 
no recorded thought, word or deed of his that I would 
wish to change — that I do not recognize and rejoice in 
as those of my rightful and righteous King and Head. 
He has claimed for me, for you, for every man, all that 
we can ask for or dream of, for He has claimed every 
one of us for his soldiers and brethren, the acknowl- 
edged children of his and our Father and God. 

But this loyalty I could never have rendered, no man 
can ever render, I believe, except to a Son of man. 
He must be perfect man as well as perfect God to sat- 



226 TRUE MANLINESS. 

isfy us — must have dwelt in a body like ours, have felt 
our sorrows, pains, temptations, weaknesses. He was 
incarnate by the Spirit of God of the Virgin. In this 
way I can see how he was indeed perfect God and per- 
fect Man. I can conceive of no other in which he 
could have been so. The Incarnation is for me the 
support of all personal holiness, and the key to human 
history. 

What was Christ's work on earth ? He came to make 
manifest, to make clear to us, the will and nature of 
this Father, our God. He made that will and nature 
clear to us as the perfectly loving and long-suffering and 
righteous will and nature. He came to lead us men, 
his brethren, back into perfect understanding of and 
submission to that will — to make us at one with 
it ; and this he did triumphantly by his own perfect 
obedience to that will, by sacrificing himself even to 
death for us, because it was the will of his and our 
Father that he should give himself up wholly and unre- 
servedly; thus, by his one sacrifice, redeeming us and 
leaving us an example that we too should sacrifice our- 
selves to Him for our brethren. Thus I believe in the 
Atonement. 



CXIV. 

Christ was not only revealed to those who saw him 
here. He did not only go about doing his Father's will 



CHRISTIANTY. 227 

here on earth for thirty-three years, eighteen hundred 
years ago, and then leave us. Had this been so, he 
would certainly in one sense have been revealed, in the 
only sense in which some orthodox writers seem to 
teach that he has been revealed. He would have been 
revealed to certain men, at a certain time, in history, 
and to us in the accounts which we have of him in the 
Gospels, through which accounts only we should have 
had to gain our knowledge of him, judging of such 
accounts by our own fallible understandings. But He 
said, " I will be with you always, even to the end of the 
world/' "I will send my Spirit into your hearts to 
testify of me ; " and He has fulfilled his promise. He 
is revealed, not in the Bible, not in history, not in or to 
some men at a certain time, or to a man here and there, 
but in the heart of you, and of me, and of every man 
and woman who is now, or ever has been, on this earth. 
His Spirit is in each of us, striving with us, cheering us, 
guiding us, strengthening us. At any moment in the 
lives of any one of us we may prove the fact for our- 
selves ; we may give ourselves up to his guidance, and 
He will accept the trust, and guide us into the knowl- 
edge of God, and of all truth. From this knowledge, 
( more certain to me than any other, of which I am ten 
thousand times more sure than I am that Queen Victo- 
ria is reigning in England, that I am writing with this 
pen at this table,) if I could see no other manifestation 
of Christ in creation, I believe in the Trinity in Unity, 



228 TRUE MANLINESS. 

the name on which all things in heaven and earth stand, 
which meets and satisfies the deepest needs and long- 
ings of my soul. 

The knowledge of this name, of these truths, has 
come to me, and to all men, in one sense, specially and 
directly through the Scriptures. I believe that God has 
given us these Scriptures, this Bible, to instruct us in 
these the highest of all truths. Therefore I reverence 
this Bible as I reverence no other book ; but I reverence 
it because it speaks of him, and his dealings with us. 
The Bible has no charm or power of its own. It may 
become a chain round men's necks, an idol in the throne 
of God, to men who will worship the book, and not 
Him of whom the book speaks. There are many signs 
that this is, or is fast becoming, the case with us ; but it 
is our fault, and not the Bible's fault. We persist in 
reading our own narrowness and idolatry into it, instead 
of hearing what it really is saying to us. 



cxv. 

I believe that the writers of Holy Scripture were 
directly inspired by God, in a manner, and to an extent, 
in and to which no other men whose words have come 
down to us have been inspired. I cannot draw the line 
between their inspiration and that of other great teachers 
of mankind. I believe that the words of these, too, just 
in so far as they have proved themselves true words, 



CHRISTIANITY. 229 

were inspired by God. But though I cannot, and man 
cannot, draw the line, God himself has done so ; for 
these books have been filtered out, as it were, under his 
guidance, from many others, which, in ages gone by, 
claimed a place beside them, and are now forgotten, 
while these have stood for thousands of years, and are 
not likely to be set aside now. For they speak if men 
will read them, to needs and hopes set deep in our 
human nature, which no other books have ever spoken 
to, or ever can speak to, in the same way — they set 
forth his government of the world as no other books 
ever have set it forth, or ever can set it forth. 

But though I do not believe that the difference be- 
tween the inspiration of Isaiah and Shakespeare is ex- 
pressible by words, the difference between the inspira- 
tion of the Holy Scripture — the Bible as a whole — and 
any other possible or conceivable collection of the 
utterances of men seems to me clear enough. The 
Bible has come to us from the Jewish nation, which was 
chosen by God as the one best fitted to receive for all 
mankind, and to give forth to all mankind, the revela- 
tion of Him — to teach them His name and character — 
that is, to enable them to know Him and in knowing 
Him, to feel how they and the world need redemption, 
and to understand how they and the world have been 
redeemed. This Bible, this Book of the chosen 
people, taken as a whole, has clone this, is in short the 
written revelation of God. This being so, there can be 



230 TRUE MANLINESS. 

no other inspired book in the same sense in which the 
Bible is inspired, unless we, or some other world, are 
not redeemed, require another redemption and another 
Christ. But as we and all worlds are redeemed, and 
Christ is come, and God has revealed his name and 
his character in Christ so that we can know Him, the 
Bible is and must remain the inspired Book, the Book of 
the Church for all time, to which nothing can be added, 
from which nothing can be taken, as they will find who 
try to take from it or add to it. There may be another 
Homer, Plato, Shakespeare ; there can be no other 
Bible. 

CXVI. 

The longing for a Deliverer and Redeemer of him- 
self and his race was the strongest and deepest feeling 
in the heart of every Jewish patriot. His whole life 
was grounded and centred on the promise and hope of 
such an one. Just therefore when his utterances would 
be most human and noble, most in sympathy with the 
cries and groanings of his own nation and the universe, 
they would all point to and centre in that Deliverer and 
Redeemer — just in so far as they were truly noble, 
human, and Godlike, they would shadow forth His true 
character, the words He would speak, the acts He 
would do. Doubtless the prophet would have before 
his mind any notable deliverance, and noble sufferer, or 



CHRISTIANITY. 231 

deliverer of his own time j his words would refer to 
these. But from these he would be inevitably drawn up 
to the great promised Deliverer and Redeemer of his 
nation and his race, because he would see after all how 
incomplete the deliverance wrought by these must be, 
and his faith in the promise made to his fathers and to 
his nation — the covenant of God in which he felt 
himself to be included — would and could be satisfied 
with nothing less than a full and perfect deliverance, a 
Redeemer who should be the Head of men, the Son of 
man, and the Son of God. 

Men may have insisted, may still insist, on seeing all 
sorts of fanciful references to some special acts of his 
in certain words of the Bible. But I must again insist 
that men's fancies about the Bible and Christ are not 
the question, but what the Bible itself says, what Christ 
is. The whole book is full of Him, there is no need to 
read Him into any part of it as to which there can be 
any possible doubt. 

Holding this faith as to the Scriptures, I am not 
anxious to defend them. I rejoice that they should be 
minutely examined and criticised. They will defend 
themselves, one and all, I believe. Men may satisfy 
themselves — perhaps, if I have time to give to the study, 
they may satisfy me — that the Pentateuch was the work 
of twenty men ; that Baruch wrote a part of Isaiah ; 
that David did not write the Psalms, or the Evangelists 
the Gospels ; that there are interpolations here and 



232 TRUE MANLINESS. 

there in the originals ; that there are numerous and se- 
rious errors in our translation. What is all this to me ? 
What do I care who wrote them, what is the date of 
them, what this or that passage ought to be ? They 
have told me what I wanted to know. Burn every copy 
in the world to-morrow, you don't and can't take that 
knowledge from me, or any man. I find them all good 
for me ; so, as long as a copy is left, and I can get it, I 
mean to go on reading them all, and believing them all 
to be inspired. 

CXVII. 

Our Lord came proclaiming a kingdom of God, a 
kingdom ordained by God on this earth, the order and 
beauty of which the unruly and sinful wills of men had 
deformed, so that disease, and death, and all miseries 
and disorder, had grown up and destroyed the order of 
it, and thwarting the perfectly loving will of God. 

In asserting this kingdom and this order, our Lord 
claimed (as he must have claimed if indeed he were 
the Son of God) dominion over disease and death. 
This dominion was lower than that over the human 
heart and will, but he claimed it as positively. He 
proved his claim to be good in other ways, but specially 
for our present purpose by healing the sick, and raising 
the dead. Were these works orderly or disorderly? 
Every one of them seems to me to be the restoring of 



CHRISTIANITY. 233 

an order which had been disturbed. They were 
witnesses for the law of life, faithful and true manifes- 
tations of the will of a loving Father to his children. 

Yes, you may say, but he did other miracles besides 
those of healing. He turned water into wine, stilled 
the waves, multiplied loaves and fishes. These at any 
rate were capricious suspensions of natural laws. You 
say you believe in natural laws which have their ground 
in God's will. Such laws he suspended or set aside in 
these cases. Now were these suspensions orderly ? 

I think they were. The natural laws which Christ 
suspended, such as the law of increase, are laws-of God. 
Being his laws, they are living and not dead laws, but 
they are not the highest law ; there must be a law of 
God, a law of his mind, above them, or they would be 
dead tyrannous rules. Christ seems to me to have been 
asserting the freedom of that law of God by suspending 
these natural laws, and to have been claiming here again, 
as part of his and our birthright, dominion over natural 
laws. 

All the other miracles, I believe, stand on the same 
ground. None have been performed except by men 
who felt that they were witnessing for God, with 
glimpses of his order, full of zeal for the triumph of 
that order in the world, and working as Christ worked, 
in his spirit, and in the name of his Father, or of him. 
If there are any miracles which do not on a fair exam- 
ination fulfil these conditions — which are such as a 



234 TRUE MANLINESS. 

loving Father educating sons who had strayed from or 
rebelled against him would not have done — I am 
quite ready to give them up. 

CXVIII. 

You have another charge against Christianity. You 
say it is after all a selfish faith, in which, however beau- 
tiful and noble the moral teaching may be, the ultimate 
appeal has always been to the hope of reward and fear 
of punishment. You will tell me that in ninety-nine of 
our churches out of a hundred I shall hear this doctrine, 
and shall find it in ninety-nine out of every hundred of 
theological or religious works. 

If it be so I am sorry for it. But I am speaking of 
Christ's Gospel, and I say that you will not find the 
doctrine you protest against there. I cannot go through 
our Lord's teaching and his disciples' to prove this. I 
ask you to read for yourselves, bringing honest and 
clear heads to the study, and not heads full of what 
you have thought, or this and the other man has 
preached or written, and I say that then you will give 
up this charge. 

But as I have tried to do in all other cases, so here, 
I will tell you exactly what my own faith on this matter 
is. 

Christ has told me that the only reward I shall ever 
get will be " life eternal," and that life eternal is to 



CHRISTIANITY. 235 

know God and Him. Tliat is all the reward I care 
about. The only punishment I can ever bring on my- 
self will be, to banish myself from his presence and the 
presence of all who know him, to dwell apart from him 
and my brethren, shut up in myself. That is the only 
punishment I dread. 

But this reward he has given us already, here. He 
has given us to know God, and knowing God involves 
entering his kingdom, and dwelling in it. That king- 
dom Christ has opened to you, and to me, here. We, 
you and I may enter in any hour we please. If we don't 
enter in now, and here, I can't see how we are ever 
likely to enter in in another world. Why should not 
we enter in ? It is worth trying. There are no condi- 
tions. It is given for the asking. 

I think you will find it all you are in search of and 
are longing for. Above all, you will find in it and no- 
where else, rest, peace — " not a peace which depends 
upon compacts and bargains among men, but which be- 
longs to the very nature and character and being of 
God. Not a peace which is produced by the stifling and 
suppression of activities and energies, but the peace in 
which all activities and energies are perfected and 
harmonized. Xot a peace which comes from the tolera- 
tion of what is base or false, but which demands its 
destruction. Not a peace which begins from without, 
but a peace which is first wrought in the inner man, and 
thence comes forth to subdue the world. Not a peace 



236 TRUE- MANLINESS. 

which a man gets for himself by standing aloof from the 
sorrows and confusions of the world in which he is born, 
of the men whose nature he shares, choosing a calm re- 
treat and quiet scenery and a regulated atmosphere ; but 
a peace which has never thriven except in those who 
have suffered with their suffering kind, who have been 
ready to give up selfish enjoyments, sensual or spiritual, 
for their sakes, who have abjured all devices of escape 
from ordained toils and temptations ; the peace which 
was His who bore the sorrows and sins and infirmities 
of man, who gave up himself that he might become 
actually one with them, who thus won for them a partici- 
pation in the Divine nature, and inheritance in that 
peace of God which passeth all understanding." 

This kingdom of God is good enough for me at any 
rate. I can trust him who has brought me into it to 
add what he will, to open my eyes, and strengthen my 
powers, that I may see and enjoy ever more and more 
of it, in this world, or in any other in which he may put 
me hereafter. Where that may be is no care of mine ; 
it will be in his kingdom still, that I know j no power 
in Heaven or Hell, or Earth can cast me out of that, 
except I myself. While I remain in it I can freely use 
and enjoy every blessing and good gift of his glorious 
earth, the inheritance which he has given to us, his 
father's children, his brethren. When it shall be his 
good pleasure to take me out of it he will not take me 
out of but bring me into more perfect communion with 



CHRISTIANITY. 237 

him and with my brethren. He nourisheth my heart 
with good things on this earth, he will not cease to do 
this anywhere else. He reveals himself to me here, 
though as a man I cannot take in his full and perfect 
revelation, but when I awake up after his likeness I 
shall be satisfied — and not till then. 



CXIX. 

One stumbling block in your way is, you say, that you 
are revolted and kept at arm's-length by the separatist 
and exclusive habits and maxims of those who profess 
to have the faith you want. Many of them are kind, 
exemplary men, but just because they are Christians, 
and in so far forth as they are Christians, they are call- 
ing to you to come out from amongst the people of the 
world — to separate yourselves from an adulterous gen- 
eration. 

Against this call something which you know to be true 
and noble in you rises up. You have felt that what 
your age is cryiug out for, is union. You acknowledge 
the power of that cry in your own hearts. You want 
to feel with all men, and for all men. If you need a 
faith at all, it is one which shall meet that cry, which 
shall teach you how all men are bound together ; not 
how some may be separated from the rest. You will 
not be false to your age. You will have no faith at all, 
or a faith for all mankind. 



238 TRUE MANLINESS. 

Keep to that ; take nothing less than that ; only look 
again and see whether that is not just what Christ offers 
you. Again I urge you not to look at his followers, real 
or professing — look at him, look at his life. 

Was He exclusive ? Did ever man or woman come 
near him and he turn away ? Did he not go amongst all 
ranks, into every society ? Did he not go to the houses 
of great men and rulers ; of Pharisees, of poor men. of 
publicans ? Did he not frequent the temple, the market- 
place, the synagogue, the sea-shore, the hillside, the 
haunts of outcasts and harlots ? Was he not to be found 
at feasts and at funerals ? Wherever men and women 
were to be found, there was his place and his work ; 
and there is ours. He who believes in him must go 
into every society where he has any call whatever. 
Who are we that we should pick and choose ? The 
greatest ruffian, the most abandoned woman, that ever 
walked the face of this earth, were good enough for our 
Lord to die for. If he sends us amongst them, he will 
take care of us, and has something for us to do or 
speak, for or to them. The greatest king, the holiest 
saint on earth, is not too high company for one for whom 
Christ died, as he did for you and me. So, if he sends 
us amongst great or holy people, let us go, and learn 
what he means us to learn there. 

I know how deeply many of you feel and mourn over 
the miseries and disorder of England and the world — 
how you long to do something towards lightening ever 



CHRISTIANITY. 239 

so small a part of those miseries, rescuing ever so 
small a corner of the earth from that disorder. I know 
well how earnestly many of you are working in one way 
or another for your country and your brethren. I know 
what high hopes many of you have for the future of the 
world and the destiny of man. I say, mourn on, work 
on ; abate not one jot of any hope you have ever had 
for the world or for man. Your hopes, be they what 
they may, have never been high enough — your work 
never earnest enough. But I ask you whether your 
hopes and your work have not been marred again and 
again, whether you have not been thrown back again 
and again into listlessness and hopelessness, by failures 
of one kind or another, whether you have not felt that 
those failures have been caused more or less by your 
own uncertainty, by your having had to work and fight 
without a leader, with comrades to whom you were 
bound only by chance, to journey without any clear 
knowledge of the road you were going, or where it led 
to? 

At such times have you not longed for light and 
guidance ? What would you have not given for a well of 
light and hope and strength, springing up within you 
and renewing your powers and energies ? What would 
you not have given for the inward certainty that the 
road you were travelling was the right one, however you 
might stumble on it ; that the line of battle in which 
you stood was the line for all true men, and was march- 



2 4 o TRUE MANLINESS. 

ing to assured victory, however it might waver and 
break at the point which had been given you to hold, 
whatever might become of you ? Well, be sure that 
light and guidance, that renewal of strength and hope, 
that certainty as to your side and your road, you are 
meant to have ; they have been prepared, and are ready, 
for every man of you, whenever you will take them. 
The longings for them are whispered in your hearts by 
the Leader, whose cross, never turned back, ever 
triumphing more and more over all principalities and 
powers of evil, blazes far ahead in the van of our 
battles. He has been called the Captain of our Salva- 
tion, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Lamb who was 
slain for the world ; He has told us his name, the Son 
of God and the Son of Man ; He has claimed to be 
the redeemer, deliverer, leader of mankind. 

cxx. 

My younger brothers, I am not speaking to you the 
words of enthusiasm or excitement, but the words of 
sober every-day knowledge and certainty. I tell you 
that all the miseries of England and of other lands con- 
sist simply in this and in nothing else, that we men, 
made in the image of God, made to know him, to be one 
with him in his Son, will not confess that Son our Lord 
and Brother, to be the Son of God and Son of man, the 
living Head of our race and of each one of us. I tell 



CHRISTIANITY. 241 

you that if we would confess him and lay hold of him 
and let him enter into and rule and guide us and the 
world, instead of trying to rule and guide ourselves and 
the world without him, we should see and know that the 
kingdom of God is just as much about us now as it will 
ever be. I tell you that we should see all sorrow and 
misery melting away and drawn up from this fair world 
of God's like mountain mist before the July sun. 

CXXI. 

I do not ask you to adopt any faith of mine. But as 
you would do good work in your generation, I ask of 
you to give yourselves no peace till you have answered 
these questions, each one for himself, in the very secret 
recesses of his heart, " Do I, does my race, want a 
head ? Can we be satisfied with any less than a Son of 
man and a Son of God ? Is this Christ, who has been 
so long worshipped in England, He ? 

If you can answer, though with faltering lips, " Yes, 
this is He," I care very little what else you accept, all 
else that is necessary or good for you will come in due 
time, if once he has the guidance of you. 

CXXII. 

My faith has been no holiday or Sunday faith, but 
one for every-day use ; a faith to live and die in, not to 



2 42 TRUE MANLINESS. 

argue or talk about. It has had to stand the wear and 
tear of life ; it was not got in prosperity. It has had to 
carry me through years of anxious toil and small means, 
through the long sicknesses of those dearer to me than 
my own life, through deaths amongst them both sudden 
and lingering. Few men of my age have had more 
failures of all kinds ; no man has deserved them more, 
by the commission of all kinds of blunders and errors, 
by evil tempers, and want of faith, hope, and love. 

Through all this it has carried me, and has risen up 
in me after every failure and ever}- 7 sorrow, fresher, 
clearer, stronger. Why do I say "it?" I mean He. 
He has carried me through it all ; He who is your 
Head and the Head of every man, woman, child, on 
this earth, or who has ever been on it, just as much as 
he is my Head. And he will carry us all through every 
temptation, trial, sorrow, we can ever have to encounter, 
in this world or any other, if we will only turn to him. 
lay hold of him, and cast them all upon him, as he has 
bidden us. 

My younger brothers, you on whom the future of your 
country, under God, at this moment depends, will you 
not try him. Is he not worth a trial ? 

CXXIII. 

Precious as his love was to him, and deeply as it 
affected his whole life, Tom felt that there must be some- 



CHRISTIANITY. 243 

thing beyond it — that its full satisfaction would not be 
enough for him. The bed was too narrow for a man to 
stretch himself on. What he was in search of must un- 
derlie and embrace his human love, and support it. 
Beyond and above all private and personal desires and 
hopes and longings, he was conscious of a restless crav- 
ing and feeling about after something which he could 
not grasp, and yet which was not avoiding him, which 
seemed to be mysteriously laying hold of him and sur- 
rounding him. 

The routine of chapels, and lectures, and reading for 
degree, boating, cricketing, Union-debating — all well 
enough in their way — left this vacuum unfilled. There 
was a great outer visible world, the problems and puz- 
zles of which were rising before him and haunting him 
more and more ; and a great inner and invisible world 
opening round him in awful depth. He seemed to be 
standing on the brink of each — now, shivering and 
helpless, feeling like an atom about to be whirled into 
the great flood and carried he knew not where — now, 
ready to plunge in and take his part, full of hope and 
belief that he was meant to buffet in the strength of a 
man with the seen and the unseen, and to be subdued 
by neither. 

CXX1V. 
Far on in the quiet night he laid the whole before the 



244 TRUE MANLINESS. 

Lord and slept ! Yes, my brother, even so : the old, old 
story; but start not at the phrase, though you may 
never have found its meaning. — He laid the whole be- 
ford the Lord, in prayer, for his friend, for himself, for 
the whole world. 

And you, too, if ever you are tried — as every man 
must be in one way or another — must learn to do the 
like with every burthen on your soul, if you would not 
have it hanging round you heavily, and ever more heav- 
ily, and dragging you down lower and lower till your 
dying day. 

cxxv. 

The English prejudice against Franklin on religious 
grounds is quite unreasonable. He was suspected of 
being a Freethinker, and was professedly a philosopher 
and man of science ; he was a friend of Tom Paine and 
other dreadful persons ; he had actually published " An 
Abridgment of the Church Prayer-Book," dedicated "to 
the serious and discerning," by the use of which he had 
the audacity to suppose that religion would be furthered, 
unanimity increased, and a more frequent attendance on 
the worship of God secured. Any one of these charges 
was sufficient to ruin a man's religious reputation in 
respectable England of the last generation, but it is high 
time that amends were made in these clays. Let us 
glance at the real facts. As a boy, Franklin had the 



CHRISTIANITY. 245 

disease which all thoughtful boys have to pass through, 
and puzzled himself with speculations as to the attri- 
butes of God and the existence of evil, which landed 
him in the conclusion that nothing could possibly be 
wrong in the world, and that vice and virtue were 
empty distinctions. These views he published at the 
mature age of nineteen, but became disgusted with them 
almost immediately, and abandoned metaphysics for 
other more satisfactory studies. Living in the eigh- 
teenth century, when happiness was held to be "'our 
being's end and aim," he seems to have now conformed 
to that popular belief ; but as he came also to the con- 
clusion that " the felicity of life " was to be attained 
through " truth, sincerity, and integrity in dealings be- 
tween man and man," and acted up to this conclusion, 
no great objection from a moral or religious standpoint 
can be taken to this stage of his development. At the 
age of twenty-two he composed a little liturgy for his 
own use, which he fell back on when the sermons of the 
minister of the only Presbyterian church in Philadel- 
phia had driven him from attendance at chapel. He 
did not, however, long remain unattached, and after his 
marriage joined the Church of England, in which he 
remained till the end of his life. What his sentiments 
were in middle life may be gathered from his advice to 
his daughter on the eve of his third departure for 
England : " Go constantly to church, whoever preaches. 
The act of devotion in the Common Prayer-Book is 



246 TRUE MANLINESS. 

your principle business there, and if properly attended 
to will do more toward amending the heart than ser- 
mons I do not mean you should despise 

sermons, even of the preachers you dislike, for the 
discourse is often much better than the man, as sweet 
and clear waters come through very dirty earth. I am 
the more particular on this head as you seem to express 
some inclination to leave our church, which I would not 
have you do." As an old man of eighty, he reminded 
his colleagues of the National Convention ( in moving 
unsuccessfully that there should be daily prayers before 
business) how in the . beginnings of the contest with 

Britain "we had daily prayers in this room 

Do we imagine we no longer need assistance ? I have 
lived now a long time, and the longer I live the more 
convincing proofs I see of this truth, that God rules in 
the affairs of men." Later yet, in answer to President 
Yates, of Yale College, who had pressed him on the 
subject, he writes, at the age of eighty-four : " Here is 
my creed : I believe in one God, the Creator of the 
universe ; that he governs it by his providence ; that he 
ought to be worshipped ; that the most acceptable 
service we render to him is doing good to his other 
children ; that the soul of man is immortal, and will be 
treated with justice in another life respecting its con- 
duct in this." These are his "fundamentals," beyond 
which he believes that Christ's system of morals and 
religion is the best the world is ever likely to see, though 



CHRISTIANITY. 247 

it has been much corrupted. To another friend he 
speaks with cheerful courage of death, which " I shall 
submit to with less regret as, having seen during a long 
life a good deal of this world, I feel a growing curiosity 
to be acquainted with some other ; and can cheerfully, 
with filial confidence, resign my spirit to the conduct of 
that great and good Parent of mankind who has so 
graciously protected and prospered me from my birth to 
the present hour." One more quotation we cannot 
resist ; it is his farewell letter to his old friend David 
Hartley : "I cannot quit the coasts of Europe with- 
out taking leave of my old friend. We were long fellow- 
laborers in the best of all works, the work of peace. 
I leave you still in the field, but, having finished my 
day's task, I am going home to bed. Wish me a good 
night's rest, as I do you a pleasant evening. Adieu, 
and believe me ever yours most affectionately, — B. 
Franklin." 

As to his relations with Paine, they should have reas- 
sured instead of frightened the orthodox, for he did his 
best to keep the author of " The Rights of Man " from 
publishing his speculations. Franklin advises him that 
he will do himself mischief and no benefit to others. 
" He who spits against the wind, spits in his own face." 
Paine is probably indebted to religion "for the habits of 
virtue on which you so justly value yourself. You might 
easily display your excellent talents of reasoning upon a 
less hazardous subject, and thereby obtain a rank 



248 TRUE MANLINESS. 

amongst our most distinguished authors. For among 
us it is not necessary, as among the Hottentots, that a 
youth, to be raised into the company of men, should 
prove his manhood by beating his mother. " 



CXXVI. 

Of course, it is more satisfactory to one's own self- 
love, to make every one who comes to one to learn, feel 
that he is a fool, and we wise men ; but, if our object is 
to teach well and usefully what we know ourselves there 
cannot be a worse method. No man, however, is likely 
to adopt it, so long as he is conscious that he has any- 
thing himself to learn from his pupils ; and as soon as 
he has arrived at the conviction that they can teach him 
nothing — that it is henceforth to be all give and no 
take — the sooner he throws up his office of teacher the 
better it will be for himself, his pupils, and his country, 
whose sons he is misguiding. 



CXXVII. 

" When one thinks what a great centre of learning 
and faith like Oxford ought to be — that its highest ed- 
ucational work should just be the deliverance of us all 
from flunkeyism and money-worship — and then looks 
at matters here without rose-colored spectacles, it gives 



EDUCATION. 249 

one sometimes a sort of chilly, leaden despondency, 
which is very hard to struggle against." 

" I am sorry to hear you talk like that, Jack, for one 
can't help loving the place after all.'*' 

" So I do, God knows. If I didn't, I shouldn't care 
for its shortcomings." 

" Well, the flunkey ism and money-worship were bad 
enough, but I don't think they were the worst things — ■ 
at least not in my day. Our neglects were almost worse 
than our worships." 

" You mean the want of all reverence for parents ? 
Well, perhaps that lies at the root of the false worships. 
They spring up on the vacant soil." 

" And the want of reverence for women, Jack. The 
worst of all, to my mind ! " 

" Perhaps you are right. But we are not at the 
bottom yet." 

" How do you mean ? " 

" I mean that we must worship God before we can 
reverence parents or women, or root out flunkeyism and 
money-worship." 

" Yes. But after all can we fairly lay that sin on Ox- 
ford? Surely, whatever may be growing up side by 
side with it, there's more Christianity here than almost 
anywhere else." 

"Plenty of common-room Christianity — belief in a 
dead God. There, I have never said it to any one but 
you, but that is the slough we have got to get out of. 



250 TRUE MANLINESS. 

Don't think that I despair for us. We shall do it yet ; 
but it will be sore work, stripping off the comfortable 
wine-party religion in which we are wrapped up — work 
for our strongest and our wisest. 



CXXVIII. 

Everybody, I suppose, knows the dreamy delicious 
state in which one lies, half asleep, half awake, while con- 
sciousness begins to return after a sound night's rest in 
a new place which we are glad to be in, following upon 
a day of unwonted excitement and exertion. There are 
few pleasanter pieces of life. The worst of it is that 
they last such a short time ; for nurse them as you will, 
by lying perfectly passive in mind and body, you can't 
make more than five minutes or so of them. After 
which time the stupid, obstrusive, wakeful entity which 
we call " I," as impatient as he is stiff-necked, spite of 
our teeth will force himself back again, and take posses- 
sion of us down to our very toes. 

CXXIX. 

The sun was going down behind the copse, through 
which his beams came aslant, chequered and mellow. 
The stream ran dimpling down, sleepily swaying the 
masses of weed, under the surface and on the surface ; 
and the trout rose under the banks, as some moth or 



HE ST. 251 

gnat or gleaming beetle fell into the stream ; here and 

there one more frolicsome than his brethren would 

threw himself joyously into the air. The swifts rushed 

plose by, in companies of five or six, and wheeled, and 

screamed, and dashed away again, skimming along the 

water, baffling the eye as one tried to follow their flight. 

Two kingfishers shot suddenly up on to their supper 

station, on a stunted willow stump, some twenty yards 

below him, and sat there in the glory of their blue backs 

and cloudy red waistcoats, watching with long sagacious 

beaks pointed to the water beneath, "and every now 

and then dropping like flashes of light into the stream, 

and rising again, with what seemed one motion, to their 

perches. A heron or two were fishing about the 

meadows ; and Tom watched them stalking about in 

their sober quaker coats, or rising on slow heavy wing, 

and lumbering away home with a weird cry. He 

heard the strong pinions of the wood pigeon in the air, 

and then from the trees above his head came the soft 

call, " Take - two - cow - Taffy, take- two -cow- Taffy, ' ' with 

which that fair and false bird is said to have beguiled 

the hapless Welchman to the gallows. Presently, as he 

lay motionless, the timid and graceful little water-hens 

peered out from their doors in the rushes opposite, and, 

seeing no cause for fear, stepped daintily into the water, 

and were suddenly surrounded by little bundles of black 

soft clown, which went paddling about in and out of the 

weeds, encouraged by the occasional sharp, clear, par- 



252 TRUE MANLINESS. 

ental " keck — keck," and merry little dabchicks popped 
up in mid-stream, and looked round, and nodded at him, 
pert and voiceless, and dived again ; even old cunning 
water-rats sat up on the bank with round black noses 
and gleaming eyes, or took solemn swims out, and 
turned up their tails and disappeared for his amuse- 
ment. A comfortable low came at intervals from the 
cattle, revelling in the abundant herbage. All living 
things seemed to be disporting themselves, and enjoy- 
ing, after their kind, the last gleams of the sunset, which 
were making the whole vault of heaven glow and shim- 
mer ; and, as he watched them, Tom blessed his stars 
as he contrasted the river-side with the glare of lamps 
and the click of balls in the noisy pool-room. 

And then the summer twilight came on, and the birds 
disappeared, and the hush of night settled down on 
river, and copse, and meadow — cool and gentle sum- 
mer twilight, after the hot bright day. He welcomed it 
too, as it folded up the landscape, and the trees lost 
their outline, and settled into soft black masses rising 
here and there out of the white mist, which seemed to 
have crept up to within a few yards all round him una- 
wares. There was no sound now but the gentle mur- 
mur of the water, and an occasional rustle of reeds, or 
of the leaves over his head, as a stray wandering puff 
of air passed through them on its way home to bed. 
Nothing to listen to, and nothing to look at ; for the 
moon had not risen, and the light mist hid everything 



REST. 253 

except a star or two right up above him. So, the out- 
side world having left him for the present, he was turned 
inwards on himself. 



cxxx. 

The nights are pleasant in May, short and pleasant 
for travel. We will leave the city asleep, and do our 
flight in the night to save time. Trust yourselves, then, 
to the story-teller's aerial machine. It is but a rough 
affair, I own, rough and humble, unfitted for high or 
great flights', with no gilded panels, or dainty cushions, 
or C-springs — not that we shall care about springs, by 
the way, until we alight on terra-firma again — still, there 
is much to be learned in a third-class carriage if we will 
only not look while in it for cushions, and fine panels, 
and forty miles an hour travelling, and will not be 
shocked at our fellow-passengers for being weak in their 
h's and smelling of fustian. Mount in it, then, you who 
will, after this warning ; the fares are holiday fares, the 
tickets return tickets. Take with you nothing but the 
poet's luggage, 

" A smile for Hope, a tear for Pain, 
A breath to swell the voice of Prayer," 

and may you have a pleasant journey, for it is time that 
the stoker should be looking to his going gear ! 

So now we rise slowly in the moonlight from St. Am- 
brose's quadrangle, and, when we are clear of the clock- 



254 TRUE MANLINESS. 

tower, steer away southwards, over Oxford city ar d all 
its sleeping wisdom and folly, over street and past spire, 
over Christ Church and the canons' houses, and the 
fountain in Tom quad ; over St. Aldate's and the river, 
along which the moonbeams lie in a pathway of twink- 
ling silver, over the railway sheds — no, there was then- 
no railway, but only the quiet fields and foot-paths of 
Hincksey hamlet. Well, no matter; at any rate, the 
hills beyond, and Bagley Wood, were there then as now : 
and over hills and wood we rise, catching the purr of 
the night-jar, the trill of the nightingale, and the first 
crow of the earliest cock-pheasant, as he stretches his 
jewelled wings, conscious of his strength and his beauty, 
heedless of the fellows of St. John's, who slumber within 
sight of his perch, on whose hospitable board he shall 
one day lie, prone on his back, with fair larded breast 
turned upwards for the carving knife, having crowed his 
last crow. He knows it not ; what matters it to him ? If 
he knew it, could a Bagley Wood cock-pheasant desire 
a better ending ? 

We pass over the vale beyond ; hall and hamlet, 
church, and meadow, and copse, folded in mist and 
shadow below us, each hamlet holding in its bosom the 
materials of three-volumed novels by the dozen, if we 
could only pull off the roofs of the houses and look 
steadily into the interiors ; but our destination is farther 
yet. The faint white streak behind the distant Chilterns 
reminds us that we have no time for gossip by the way ; 



REST. 



! 55 



May nights are short, and the sun will be up by four. 
No matter ; our journey will now be soon over, for the 
broad vale is crossed, and the chalk hills and downs 
beyond. Larks quiver up by us, " higher, ever higher," 
hastening up to get a first glimpse of the coming mon- 
arch, careless of food, flooding the fresh air with song. 
Steady plodding rooks labor along below us, and lively 
starlings rush by on the look-out for the early worm ; 
lark and swallow, rook and starling, each on his 
appointed round. The sun arises, and they get them to 
it ; he is up now, and these breezy uplands over which 
we hang are swimming in the light of horizontal rays, 
though the shadows and mists still lie on the wooded 
dells which slope away southwards. 

This is no chalk, this high knoll which rises above — 
one may almost say hangs over — the village, crowned 
with Scotch firs, its sides tufted with gorse and heather. 
It is the Hawk's Lynch, the favorite resort of Engle- 
bourn folk, who come up for the view, for the air, 
because their fathers and mothers came up before them, 
because they came up themselves as children — from an 
instinct which moves them all in leisure hours and 
Sunday evenings, when the sun shines and the birds 
sing, whether they care for view or air or not. Some- 
thing guides all their feet hitherward ; the children, to 
play hide-and-seek and look for nests in the gorse- 
bushes ; young men and maidens, to saunter and look 
and talk, as they will till the world's end — or as long, 



256 TRUE MANLINESS. 

at any rate, as the Hawk's Lynch and Englebourn last 
— and to cut their initials, inclosed in a true lover's 
knot, on the short rabbit's turf ; steady married couples, 
to plod along together consulting on hard times and 
growing families ; even old tottering men, who love to 
sit at the feet of the firs, with chins leaning on their 
sticks, prattling of days long past, to any one who will 
listen, or looking silently with dim eyes into the summer 
air, feeling perhaps in their spirits after a wider and 
more peaceful view which will soon open for them. A 
common knoll, open to all, up in the silent air, well away 
from every-day Englebourn life, with the Hampshire 
range and the distant Beacon Hill lying soft on the 
horizon, and nothing higher between you and the 
southern sea, what a blessing the Hawk's Lynch is to 
the village ' folk, one and all ! May Heaven and a 
thankless soil long preserve it and them from an in- 
closure under the Act ! 

CXXXI. 

In January, 878, King Alfred disappears from the 
eyes of Saxon and Northmen, and we follow him, by 
such light as tradition throws upon these months, into 
the thickets and marshes of Selwood. It is at this point, 
as is natural enough, that romance has been most busy, 
and it has become impossible to disentangle the actual 
facts from monkish legend and Saxon ballad. In hap- 



PROVIDENCE. 257 

pier times Alfred was in the habit himself of talking 
over the events of his wandering life pleasantly with his 
courtiers, and there is no reason to doubt that the foun- 
dation of most of the stories still current rests on those 
conversations of the truth-loving king, noted down by 
Bishop Asser and others. 

The best known of these is, of course, the story of the 
cakes. In the depths of the Saxon forests there were 
always a few neat-herds and swine-herds, scattered up 
and down, living in rough huts enough we may be sure, 
and occupied with the care of the cattle and herds of 
their masters. Amongst these in Selwood was a neat- 
herd of the king, a faithful man, to whom the secret of 
Alfred's disguise was intrusted, and who kept it even 
from his wife. To this man's hut the king came one 
day alone, and, sitting himself down by the burning 
logs on the hearth, began mending his bows and arrows. 
The neat-herd's wife had just finished her baking, and, 
having other household matters to attend to, confided 
her loaves to the king, a poor, tired looking body, who 
might be glad of the warmth, and could make himself 
useful by turning the batch, and so earn his share while 
she got on with other business. But Alfred worked 
away at his weapons, thinking of anything but the good 
housewife's batch of loaves, which in due course were 
not only done, but rapidly burning to a cinder. At this 
moment the neat-herd's wife comes back, and flying to 
the hearth to rescue the bread, cries out, " D'rat the 



2 5 8 TRUE MANLINESS. 

man ! never to turn the loaves when you see them burn- 
ing. I'ze warrant you ready enough to eat them when 
they're clone." But beside the king's faithful neat-herd, 
whose name is not preserved, there are other churls in 
the forest, who must be Alfred's comrades just now if 
he will have any. And even here he has an eye for a 
good man, and will lose no opportunity to help one to 
the best of his power. Such a one he finds in a certain 
swine-herd called Denewulf, whom he gets to know, a 
thoughtful Saxon man, minding his charge there in the 
oak woods. The rough churl, or thrall, we know not 
which, has great capacity, as Alfred soon finds out, and 
desire to learn. So the king goes to work upon Dene- 
wulf under the oak trees, when the swine will let him, 
and is well satisfied with the results of his teachings and 
the progress of his pupil. 

But in those miserable days the commonest necessa- 
ries of life were hard enough to come by for the king 
and his few companions, and for his wife and family, 
who soon joined him in the forest, even if they were not 
with him from the first. The poor foresters cannot 
maintain them, nor are this band of exiles the men to 
live on the poor. So Alfred and his comrades are soon 
foraging on the borders of the forest, and getting what 
subsistence they can from the Pagan, or from the Chris- 
tians who had submitted to their yoke. So we may im- 
agine them dragging on life till near Easter when a 
gleam of good news comes up from the west, to gladden 



PR O VIDENCE. 25 9 

the hearts and strengthen the anns of these poor men 
in the depths of Selwood. 

Soon after Guthrum and the main body of the Pagans 
moved from Gloster, southwards, the Viking Hubba, as 
had been agreed, sailed with thirty ships of war from his 
winter quarters on the South Welsh coast, and landed 
in Devon. The news of the catastrophe at Chippen- 
ham, and of the disappearance of the king, was no doubt 
already known in the west ; and in the face of it Odda 
the alderman cannot gather strength to meet the Pagans 
in the open field. But he is a brave and true man, and 
will make no term with the spoilers ; so, with other 
faithful thegns of King Alfred and their followers, he 
throws himself into a castle or fort called Cynwith, or 
Cynnit, there to abide whatever issue of this business 
God will send them. Hubba, with the war-flag Raven, 
and a host laden with the spoil of rich Devon vales, ap- 
pear in clue course before the place. It is not strong 
naturally, and has only " walls in our own fashion," 
meaning probably rough earth-works. But there are 
resolute men behind them, and on the whole Hubba de- 
clines the assault, and sits down before the place. 
There is no spring of water, he hears, within the Saxon 
lines, and they are otherwise wholly unprepared for a 
siege. A few days will no doubt settle the matter, and 
the sword or slavery will be the portion of Odda and the 
rest of Alfred's men ; meantime there is spoil enough 
in the camp from Devonshire homesteads, which brave 



26o TRUE MANLINESS. 

men can revel in round the war-flag Raven, while they 
watch the Saxon ramparts. Oclda, however, has quite 
other views than death from thirst, or surrender. Be- 
fore any stress comes, early one morning, he and his 
whole force sally out over their earth-works, and from 
the first " cut down the Pagans in great numbers ; " 
eight hundred and forty warriors (some say one thousand 
two hundred), with Hubba himself, are slain before 
Cynnit fort ; the rest, few in number, escape to their 
ships. The war-flag Raven is left in the hands of Odda 
and the men of Devon. 

This is the news which comes to Alfred, Ethelnoth 
the alderman of Somerset, Denewulf the swine-herd, 
and the rest of the Selwood Forest group, some time 
before Easter. These men of Devonshire, it seems, are 
still staunch, and ready to peril their lives against the 
Pagans. No doubt up and down Wessex, thrashed and 
trodden out as the nation is by this time, there are other 
good men and true, who will neither cross the sea or the 
Welsh marches, nor make terms with the Pagan ; 
some sprinkling of men who will yet set life at stake, 
for faith in Christ and love of England. If these can 
only be rallied, who can say what may follow ? So, in 
the lengthening days of spring, council is held in Sel- 
wood and there will have been Easter services in some 
chapel, or hermitage, in the forest, or, at any rate in 
some quiet glade. The " clay of days " will surely have 
had its voice of hope for this poor remnant. Christ is 



PROVIDENCE. 261 

risen and reigns : and it is not in these heathen Danes, 
or in all the Northmen who ever sailed across the sea, 
to put back his kingdom, or enslave those whom he has 
freed. 

The result is, that, far away from the eastern boundary 
of the forest, on a rising ground — hill it can scarcely 
be called — surrounded by dangerous marshes formed 
by the little rivers Thone and Parret, fordable only in 
summer, and even then dangerous to all who have not 
the secret, a small fortified camp is thrown up under 
Alfred's eye, by Ethelnoth and the Somersetshire men, 
where he can once again raise his standard. The spot 
has been chosen by the king with the utmost care, for 
it is his last throw. He names it the Etheling's eig or 
island, " Athelney." Probably his young son, the 
Etheling of England, is there amongst the first, with his 
mother and his grand-mother Eadburgha, the widow of 
Ethelred Mucil, the venerable lady whom Asser saw in 
later years, and who has now no country but her 
daughter's. There are, as has been reckoned, some two 
acres of hard ground on the island, and around vast 
brakes of alder-bush, full of deer and other game. 
Here the Somersetshire men can keep up constant 
communication with him, and a small army grows to- 
gether. They are soon strong enough to make forays 
into the open country, and in many skirmishes they cut 
off parties of the Pagans, and supplies. " For, even 
when overthrown and cast down,'" says Malmesbury, 



262 TRUE MANLINESS. 

" Alfred had always to be fought with ; so then, when 
one would esteem him altogether worn down and broken, 
like a snake slipping from the hand of him who would 
grasp it, he would suddenly flash out again from his 
hiding-places, rising up to smite his foes in the height 
of their insolent confidence, and never more hard to 
beat than after a flight." 

But it was still a trying life at Athelney. Followers 
came in slowly, and provender and supplies of all kinds 
are hard to wring from the Pagan, and harder still to 
take from Christian men. One clay, while it was yet so 
cold that the water was still frozen, the king's people had 
gone out " to get them fish or fowl, or some such pur- 
veyance as they sustained themselves withal." No one 
was left in the royal hut for the moment but himself and 
his mother-in-law, Eadburgha. The king ( after his con- 
stant wont whensoever he had opportunity) was reading 
from the Psalms of David, out of the Manual which he 
carried always in his bosom. At this moment a poor 
man appeared at the door and begged for a morsel of 
bread " for Christ his sake." Whereupon the king, re- 
ceiving the stranger as a brother, called to his mother-in- 
law to give him to eat. Eadburgha replied that there 
was but one loaf in their store, and a little wine in a 
pitcher, a provision wholly insufficient for his own fam- 
ily and people. But the king bade her, nevertheless, 
to give the stranger part of the last loaf, which she ac- 
cordingly did. But when he had been served, the 



PR O VIDENCE. 2 63 

stranger was no more seen, and the loaf remained 
whole, and the pitcher full to the brim. Alfred, mean- 
time, had turned to his reading, over which he fell asleep 
and dreamed that St. Cuthbert of Lindisfarne stood by 
him, and told him it was he who had been his guest, 
and that God had seen his afflictions and those of his 
people, which were now about to end, in token whereof 
his people would return that day from their expedition 
with a great take of fish. The king awaking, and 
being much impressed with his dream, called to his 
mother-in-law and recounted it to her, who thereupon as- 
sured him that she too had been overcome with sleep, 
and had had the same dream. And while they yet 
talked together on what had happened so strangely to 
them, their servants came in, bringing fish enough, as it 
seemed to them, to have fed an army. 

The monkish legend goes on to tell that on the next 
morning the king crossed to the mainland in a boat, 
and wound his horn thrice, which drew to him before 
noon five hundred men. What we may think of the 
story and the dream, as Sir John Spelman says, " is not 
here very much material,*' seeing that whether we deem 
it natural or supernatural, " the one as well as the other 
serves at God's appointment, by raising or dejecting of 
the mind with hopes or fears, to lead man to the resolu- 
tion of those things whereof he has before ordained the 
event." 



264 TRUE MANLINESS. 

CXXXII. 

" Mrs. Winburn is ill, isn't she ? " asked Tom, after 
looking his guide over. 

" Ees, her be — terrible bad," said the constable. 

" What is the matter with her, do you know ? " 

" Zummat o' fits, I hears. Her've had 'em this six 
year, on and off." 

" I suppose it's dangerous. I mean she isn't likely 
to get well ? " 

" 'Tis in the Lord's hands," replied the constable, 
" but her's that bad wi' pain, at times, 'twould be a 
mussy if 'twoud plaase He to tak' her out on't." 

" Perhaps she mightn't think so," said Tom, super- 
ciliously ; he was not in the mind to agree with any one. 
The constable looked at him solemnly for a moment and 
then said : 

" Her's been a God-fearin' woman from her youth up, 
and her's had a deal o' trouble. Thaay as the Lord 
loveth He chasteneth, and 'tisn't such as thaay as is 
afeard to go afore Him." 

" Well, I never found that having trouble made peo- 
ple a bit more anxious to get ' out on't,' as you call it," 
said Tom. 

" It don't seem to me as you can 'a had much o' 
trouble to judge by," said the constable, who was be- 
ginning to be nettled by Tom's manner. 

" How can you tell that ? " 



DISCIPLINE. 265 

" Leastways 'twould be whoam-made, then," persisted 
the constable ; " and ther's a sight o' odds atween 
whoam-made troubles and thaay as the Lord sends." 

" So there may ; but I may have seen both sorts for 
anything you can tell." 

" Nay, nay; the Lord's troubles leave His marks." 



CXXXIII. 

" And I be to write to you, sir, then, if Harry gets 
into trouble ? " 

' " Yes ; but we must keep him out of trouble, even 
home-made ones, which don't leave good marks, you 
know," said Tom. 

" And thaay be nine out o' ten o' aal as comes to a 
man, sir," said David, " as I've a told Harry scores o' 
times." 

" That seems to be your text, David," said Tom, 
laughing. 

" Ah, and 'tis a good un too, sir. 'Tis a sight better 
to have the Lord's troubles while you be about it, for 
thaay as hasn't makes wusfortheirselves out o' nothin'." 



CXXXIV. 

Grey, who had never given up hopes of bringing Tom 
round to his own views, had not neglected the opportu- 



266 TRUE MANLINESS. 

nities which his residence in town offered, and had 
enlisted Tom's services on more than one occasion. 
He had found him specially useful in instructing the 
big boys, whom he was trying to bring together and 
civilize in a " Young Men's Club," in the rudiments of 
cricket on Saturday evenings. But on the morning in 
question an altogether different work was on hand. 

A lady living some eight or nine miles to the north- 
west of London, who took great interest in Grey's 
doings, had asked him to bring the children of his night- 
school down to spend a day in her grounds, and this was 
the happy occasion. It was before the days of cheap 
excursions by rail, so that vans had to be found for the 
party ; and Grey had discovered a benevolent remover 
of furniture in Paddington, who was ready to take them 
at a reasonable figure. The two vans, with awnings and 
curtains in the height of the fashion, and horses with 
tasselled ear-caps, and everything handsome about them, 
were already drawn up in the midst of a group of 
excited children, and scarcely less excited mothers, when 
Tom arrived. Grey was arranging his forces, and la- 
boring to reduce the Irish children, who formed almost 
half of his ragged little flock, into something like order 
before starting. By degrees this was managed, and 
Tom was placed in command of the rear van, while 
Grey reserved the leading one to himself. The children 
were divided, and warned not to lean over the sides and 
tumble out — a somewhat superfluous caution, as most 



DISCIPLINE. 267 

of them, though unused to riding in any legitimate 
manner, were pretty well used to balancing themselves 
behind any vehicle which offered as much as a spike to 
sit on, out of sight of the driver. Then came the rush 
into the vans. Grey and Tom took up their places next 
the doors as conductors, and the procession lumbered 
off with great success, and much shouting from treble 
voices. 

Tom soon found that he had plenty of work on his 
hands to keep the peace amongst his flock. The Irish 
element was in a state of wild effervescence, and he had 
to draft them down to his own end, leaving the foremost 
part of the van to the sober English children. He was 
much struck by the contrast of the whole set to the 
Englebourn school children, whom he had lately seen 
under somewhat similar circumstances. The difficulty 
with them had been to draw them out, and put anything 
like life into them ; here, all he had to do was to repress 
the superabundant life. However, the vans held on 
their way, and got safely into the suburbs, and so at last 
to an occasional hedge, and a suspicion of trees, and 
green fields beyond. 

It became more and more difficult now to keep the 
boys in \ and when they came to a hill, where the horses 
had to walk, he yielded to their entreaties, and, opening 
the door, let them out, insisting only that the girls 
should remain seated. They scattered over the sides of 
the roads, and up the banks ; now chasing pigs and 



268 TRUE MANLINESS. 

fowls up to the very doors of their owners ; now gather- 
ing the commonest road-side weeds, and running up to 
show them to him, and ask their names, as if the)? were 
rare treasures. The ignorance of most of the children 
as to the commonest country matters astonished him. 
One small boy particularly came back time after time to 
ask him, with solemn face, " Please, sir, is this the 
country ? " and when at last he allowed that it was, re- 
joined, " Then, please, where are the nuts ? " 

The clothing of most of the Irish boys began to tum- 
ble to pieces in an alarming manner. Grey had insisted 
on their being made tidy for the occasion, but the tidi- 
ness was of a superficial kind. The hasty stitching soon 
began to give way, and they were rushing about with 
wild locks ; the strips of what might have once been 
nether garments hanging about their legs ; their feet 
and heads bare, the shoes which their mothers had bor- 
rowed for the state occasion having been deposited 
under the seat of the van, so when the procession ar- 
rived at the trim lodge-gates of their hostess, and his 
charge descended and fell in on the beautifully clipped 
turf at the side of the drive, Tom felt some of the sen- 
sations of Falstaff when he had to lead his ragged regi- 
ment through Coventry streets. 

He was soon at his ease again, and enjoyed the day 
thoroughly, and the drive home ; but, as they drew near 
town again, a sense of discomfort and shyness came over 
him, and he wished the journey to Westminster well 



DISCIPLINE. 269 

over, and hoped that the carman would have the sense 
to go through the quiet parts of the town. 

He was much disconcerted, consequently, when the 
vans came to a sudden stop, opposite one of the Park 
entrances, in the Bayswater road. " What in the world 
is Grey about ? " he thought, as he saw him get out, and 
all the children after him. So he got out himself, and 
went forward to get an explanation. 

" Oh, I have told the man that he need not drive us 
round to Westminster. He is close at home here, and 
his horses have had a hard day; so we can just get out 
and walk home." 

"What, across the Park?" asked Tom. 

" Yes, it will amuse the children, you know." 

" But they're tired," persisted Tom ; " come now, it's 
all nonsense letting the fellow off ; he's bound to take 
us back." 

" I'm afraid I have promised him," said Grey ; "be- 
sides, the children all think it a treat. Don't you all 
want to walk across the Park ? " he went on, turning to 
them, and a general affirmative chorus was the answer. 
So Tom had nothing for it but to shrug his shoulders, 
empty his own van, and follow into the Park with his 
convoy, not in the best humor with Grey for having ar- 
ranged this ending to their excursion. 

They might have got over a third of the distance be- 
tween the Bayswater Road and the Serpentine, when he 
was aware of a small thin voice addressing him. 



270 TRUE MANLINESS. 

" Oh, please won't you carry me a bit ? I'm so 
tired," said the voice. He turned in some trepidation 
to look for the speaker, and found her to be a sickly un- 
dergrown little girl, of ten or thereabouts, with large 
pleading gray eyes, very shabbily dressed, and a little 
lame. He had remarked her several times in the course 
of the day, not for any beauty or grace about her, for 
the poor child had none, but for her transparent confi- 
dence and trustfulness. After dinner, as they had been 
all sitting on the grass under the shade of a great elm to 
hear Grey read a story, and Tom had been sitting a 
little apart from the rest with his back against the 
trunk, she had come up and sat quietly down by him, 
leaning on his knee. Then he had seen her go up and 
take the hand of the lady who had entertained them, 
and walk along by her, talking without the least shy- 
ness. Soon afterwards she had squeezed into the swing 
by the side of the beautifully-dressed little daughter of 
the same lady, who, after looking for a minute at her 
shabby little sister with large round eyes, had jumped 
out and run off to her mother, evidently in a state of 
childish bewilderment as to whether it was not wicked 
for a child to wear such dirty old clothes. 

Tom had chuckled to himself as he saw Cinderella 
settling herself comfortably in the swing in the place of 
the ousted princess, and had taken a fancy to the child, 
speculating to himself as to how she could have been 
brought up, to be so utterly unconscious of differences of 



DISCIPLINE. 271 

rank and dress. " She seems really to treat her fellow- 
creatures as if she had been studying the Sartor Resar- 
tus" he thought. " She has cut down through all 
clothes-philosophy without knowing it. I wonder, if she 
had a chance, whether she would go and sit down in the 
Queen's lap ? " 

He did not at that time anticipate that she would put 
his own clothes-philosophy to so severe a test before the 
day was over. The child had been as merry and active 
as any of the rest during the earlier part of day ; but 
now, as he looked down in answer to her reiterated 
plea, "Won't you carry me a bit ? I'm so tired ! " he 
saw that she could scarcely drag one foot after another. 

What was to be done ? He was already keenly alive 
to the discomfort of walking across Hyde Park in a pro- 
cession of ragged children, with such a figure of fun as 
Grey at their head, looking, in his long rusty, straight-cut 
black coat, as if he had come fresh out of Noah's ark. 
He didn't care about it so much while they were on the 
turf in the out-of-the-way parts, and would meet nobody 
but guards, and nurse-maids, and trades-people, and me- 
chanics out for an evening's stroll. But the Drive and 
Rotten-row lay before them, and must be crossed. It 
was just the most crowded time of the day. He had 
almost made up his mind once or twice to stop Grey 
and the procession, and propose to sit down for half an 
hour or so and let the children play, by which time the 
world would be going home to dinner. But there was 



272 TRUE MANLINESS. 

no play left in the children ; and he had resisted the 
temptation, meaning, when they came to the most 
crowded part, to look unconscious, as if it were by 
chance that he got into such company, and had in fact 
nothing to do with them. But now, if he listened to the 
child's plea, and carried her, all hope of concealment 
was over. If he did not, he felt that there would be no 
greater flunkey in the Park that evening than Thomas 
Brown, the enlightened radical and philosopher, amongst 
the young gentlemen riders in Rotten-row, or the pow- 
dered footmen lounging behind the great glaring car- 
riages in the drive. 

So he looked down at the child once or twice in a 
state of puzzle. A third time she looked up with her 
great eyes, and said, "Oh, please carry me a bit ! " and 
her piteous, tired face turned the scale. " If she were 
Lady Mary or Lady Blanche," thought he, " I should 
pick her up at once, and be proud of the burden. Here 
goes ! " And he took her up in his arms, and walked 
on, desperate and reckless. 

Notwithstanding all his philosophy, he felt his ears 
tingling and his face getting red, as they approached 
the Drive. It was crowded. They were kept standing 
a minute or two at the crossing. He made a desperate 
effort to abstract himself wholly from the visible world, 
and retire into a state of serene contemplation. But it 
would not do , and he was painfully conscious of the 
stare of lack-lustre eyes of well-dressed men leaning 



DISCIPLINE. 273 

over the rails, and the amused look of delicate ladies, 
lounging in open carriages, and surveying him and Grey 
and their ragged rout through glasses. 

At last they scrambled across, and he breathed freely 
for a minute, as they struggled along the comparatively 
quiet path leading to Albert Gate, and stopped to drink 
at the fountain. Then came Rotten-row, and another 
pause amongst the loungers, and a plunge into the Ride, 
where he was nearly run down by two men whom he had 
known at Oxford. They shouted to him to get out of 
the way ; and he felt the hot defiant blood rushing 
through his veins as he strode across without heeding. 
They passed on, one of them having to pull his horse 
out of his stride to avoid him. Did they recognize him ? 
He felt a strange mixture of utter indifference, and 
longing to strangle them. 

The worst was now over ; besides, he was getting used 
to the situation, and his good sense was beginning to 
rally. So he marched through Albert Gate, carrying 
his ragged little charge, who prattled away to him with- 
out a pause, and surrounded by the rest of the children, 
scarcely caring who might see him. 

They went safely through the omnibuses and carriages 
on the Kensington Road, and so into Belgravia. At 
last he was quite at his ease again, and began listening 
to what the child was saying to him, and was strolling 
carelessly along, when once more, at one of the cross- 
ings, he was startled by a shout from some riders. 



274 TRUE MANLINESS. 

There was straw laid clown in the street, so that he 
had not heard them as they cantered round the corner, 
hurrying home to dress for dinner ; and they were all 
but upon him, and had to rein up their horses sharply. 

The party consisted of a lady and two gentlemen, one 
old, the other young ; the latter dressed in the height of 
fashion, and with the supercilious air which Tom hated 
from his soul. The shout came from the young man, 
and drew Tom's attention to him first. All the devil 
rushed up as he recognized St. Cloud. The lady's horse 
swerved against his, and began to rear. He put his 
hand on its bridle, as if he had a right to protect her. 
Another glance told Tom that the lady was Mary, and 
the old gentleman, fussing up on his stout cob on the 
other side of her, Mr. Porter. 

They all knew him in another moment. He stared 
from one to the other, was conscious that she turned her 
horse's head sharply, so as to disengage the bridle from 
St. Cloud's hand, and of his insolent stare, and of the 
embarrassment of Mr. Porter ; and then, setting his face 
straight before him, he passed on in a bewildered dream, 
never looking back till they were out of sight. The 
dream gave way to bitter and wild thoughts, upon which 
it will do none of us any good to dwell. He put down 
the little girl outside the schools, turning abruptly from 
the mother, a poor widow in scant, well-preserved black 
clothes, who was waiting for the child, and began thank- 
ing him for his care of her ; refused Grey's pressing in- 



DISCIPLINE. 275 

vitation to tea, and set his face eastward. Bitterer and 
more wild and more scornful grew his thoughts as he 
strode along past the Abbey, and up Whitehall, and away 
down the Strand, holding on over the crossings without 
paying the slightest heed to vehicle, or horse, or man. 
Incensed coachmen had to pull up with a jerk to avoid 
running over him, and more than one sturdy walker 
turned round in indignation at a collision which they 
felt had been intended, or at least which there had been 
no effort to avoid. 

As he passed under the window of the Banqueting 
Hall, and by the place in Charing-cross where the pil- 
lory used to stand, he growled to himself what a pity it 
was that the times for cutting off heads and cropping 
ears had gone by. The whole of the dense population 
from either side of the Strand seemed to have crowded 
out into that thoroughfare to impede his march and 
aggravate him. The further eastward he got the thicker 
got the crowd ; and the vans, the omnibuses, the cabs, 
seemed to multiply and get noisier. Not an altogether 
pleasant sight to a man in the most Christian frame of 
mind is the crowd that a fine summer evening fetches 
out into the roaring Strand, as the sun fetches out flies 
on the window of a village grocery. To him just then 
it was at once depressing and provoking, and he went 
shouldering his way towards Temple Bar as thoroughly 
out of tune as he had been for many a long day. 

As he passed from the narrowest part of the Strand 



276 TRUE MANLINESS. 

into the space round St. Clement Danes' church, he was 
startled, in a momentary lull of the uproar, by the sound 
of chiming bells. He slackened his pace to listen ; but 
a huge van lumbered by, shaking the houses on both 
sides, and drowning all sounds but its own rattle ; and 
then he found himself suddenly immersed in a crowd, 
vociferating and gesticulating round a policeman, who 
was conveying a woman towards the station-house. He 
shouldered through it — another lull came, and with it 
the same slow, gentle, calm cadence of chiming bells. 
Again and again he caught it as he passed on to Tem- 
ple Bar ; whenever the roar subsided the notes of the 
old hymn-tune came dropping down on him like balm 
from the air. If the ancient benefactor who caused the 
bells of St. Clement Danes' church to be arranged to 
play that chime so many times a day is allowed to hover 
round the steeple at such times, to watch the effect of 
his benefaction on posterity, he must have been well 
satisfied on that evening. Tom passed under the Bar, 
and turned into the Temple another man, softened 
again, and in his right mind. 

" There's always a voice saying the right thing to you 
somewhere, if you'll only listen for it," he thought. 

CXXXV. 

" It was because you were out of sorts with the world, 
smarting with the wrongs you saw on every side, strug- 



WOMAN'S RIGHTS. 277 

gling after something better and higher, and siding and 
sympathizing with the poor and weak, that I loved you. 
We should never have been here, dear, if you had been 
a young gentleman satisfied with himself and the world, 
and likely to get on well in society." 

" Ah, Mary, it's all very well for a man. It's a man's 
business. But why is a woman's life to be made 
wretched ? Why should you be dragged into all my 
perplexities, and doubts, and dreams, and struggles?" 

" And why should I not ? " 

"Life should be all bright and beautiful to a woman. 
It is every man's duty to shield her from all that can vex, 
or pain, or soil." 

"But have women different souls from men ?" 

" God forbid ! " 

" Then are we not fit to share your highest hopes ? " 

" To share our highest hopes ! Yes, when we have 
any. But the mire and clay where one sticks fast over 
and over again, with no high hopes or high anything 
else in sight — a man must be a selfish brute to bring 
one he pretends to love into all that." 

"Now, Tom," she said almost solemnly, "you are 
not true to yourself. Would you, part with your own 
deepest convictions ? Would you if you could, go back 
to the time when you cared for and thought about none 
of these things ? " 

" He thought a minute, and then, pressing her hand, 
said : 



278 TRUE MANLINESS. 

" No, dearest, I would not. The consciousness of 
the darkness in one and around one brings the longing 
for light. And then the light dawns ; through mist and 
fog, perhaps, but enough to pick one's way by." He 
stopped a moment, and then added, " and shines ever 
brighter unto the -perfect day. Yes, I begin to know 
it." 

" Then, why not put me on your own level ? Why 
not let me pick my way by your side ? Cannot a woman 
feel the wrongs that are going on in the world ? 
Cannot she long to see them set right, and pray that 
they may be set right ? We are not meant to sit in 
fine silks, and look pretty, and spend money, any more 
than you are meant to make it, and cry peace where 
there is no peace. If a woman cannot do much herself, 
she can honor and love a man who can." 

He turned to her, and bent over her, and kissed her 
forehead, and kissed her lips. She looked up with 
sparkling eyes and said : 

" Am I not right, dear ? " 

" Yes, you are right, and I have been false to my 
creed. You have taken a load off my heart, dearest. 
Henceforth there shall be but one mind and one soul 
between us. You have made me feel what it is that a 
man wants, what is the help that is meet for him." 

He looked into her eyes, and kissed her again ; and 
then rose up, for there was something within him like a 
moving of new life, which lifted him, and set him on 



HEROISM. 279 

his feet. And he stood with kindling brow, gazing into 
the autumn air, as his heart went sorrowing, but hope- 
fully " sorrowing, back through all the faultful past." 
And she sat on at first, and watched his face • and 
neither spoke nor moved for some minutes. Then she 
rose too, and stood by his side : 

And on her lover's arm she leant, 
And round her waist she felt it fold ; 

And so across the hills they went, 
In that new world which is the old. 



CXXXVI. 

There is no recorded end of a life that I know of more 
entirely brave and manly than the one of Captain John 
Brown, of which we know every minutest detail, as it 
happened in the full glare of our modern life not twenty 
years ago. About that I think there would scarcely be 
disagreement anywhere. The very men who allowed 
him to lie in his bloody clothes till the day of his ex- 
ecution, and then hanged him, recognized this. " You 
are a game man, Captain Brown," the Southern sheriff 
said in the wagon. "Yes," he answered, "I was so 
brought up. It was one of my mother's lessons. From 
infancy I have not suffered from physical fear. I have 
suffered a thousand times more from bashfulness ; " and 
then he kissed a negro child in its mother's arms, and 
walked cheerfully on to the scaffold, thankful that he 



2 8o TRUE MANLINESS. 

was " allowed to die for a cause, and not merely to pay 
the debt of nature, as all must." 

There is no simpler or nobler record in the " Book of 
Martyrs," and in passing I would only remind you, that 
he at least was ready to acknowledge from whence came 
his strength. " Christ, the great Captain of liberty as 
well as of salvation," he wrote just before his death, 
" saw fit to take from me the sword of steel after I had 
carried it for a time. But he has put another in my 
hand, the sword of the Spirit, and I pray God to make 
me a faithful soldier wherever he may send me." And 
to a friend who left him with the words, " If you can 
be true to yourself to the end how glad we shall be," 
he answered, " I cannot say, but I do not think I shall 
deny my Lord and Master, Jesus Christ." 



CXXXVII. 

Patience, humility, and utter forgetfulness of self are 
the true royal qualities. 

CXXXVIII. 

" By the light of burning martyr fires Christ's bleeding feet I track, 
Toiling up new Calvaries ever with the cross that turns not back." 

All chance of the speedy triumph of the kingdom of 
God, humanly speaking, in the lake country of Galilee 
— the battle-field chosen by himself, where his might- 



HEROISM. 281 

iest works had been done and his migthiest words 
spoken — the district from which his chosen companions 
came, and in which clamorous crowds had been ready 
to declare him king — is now over. The conviction 
that this is so, that he is a baffled leader, in hourly 
danger of his life, has forced itself on Christ. Before 
entering that battle-field, face to face with the tempter 
in the wilderness, he had deliberately rejected all aid 
from the powers and kingdoms of this world, and now, 
for the moment, the powers of this world have proved 
too strong for him. 

The rulers of that people — Pharisee, Sadducee, and 
Herodian, rcribe and lawyer — were now marshalled 
against him in one compact phalanx, throughout all the 
coasts of Galilee, as well as in Judea. 

His disciples, rough, most of them peasants, full of pa- 
triotism, but with small power of insight or self-control, 
were melting away from a leader who, while he refused 
them active service under a patriot chief at open war 
with Caesar and his legions, bewildered them by assum- 
ing titles and talking to them in language which they 
could not understand. They were longing for one who 
would rally them against the Roman oppressor, and give 
them a chance, at any rate, of winning their own land 
again, purged of the heathen and free from tribute. 
Such an one would be worth following to the death. 
But what could they make of this " Son of Man, " who 
would prove his title to that name by giving his body 



282 TRUE MANLINESS. 

and pouring out his blood for the life of man — of this 
" Son of God," who spoke of redeeming mankind and 
exalting mankind to God's right hand, instead of exalt- 
ing the Jew to the head of mankind? 

In the face of such a state of things, to remain in 
Capernaum, or the neighboring towns and villages, 
would have been to court death, there, and at once. 
The truly courageous man, you may remind me, is not 
turned from his path by the fear of death, which is the 
supreme test and touchstone^ of his courage. True ; 
nor was Christ so turned, even for a moment. 

Whatever may have been his hopes in the earlier part 
of his career, by this time he had no longer a thought 
that mankind could be redeemed without his own per- 
fect and absolute sacrifice and humiliation. The cup 
would indeed have to be drunk to the dregs, but not 
here, nor now. This must be done at Jerusalem, the 
centre of the national life and the seat of the Roman 
government. It must be done during the Passover, the 
national commemoration of sacrifice and deliverance. 
And so he withdraws, with a handful of diciples, and even 
they still wayward, half-hearted, doubting, from the con- 
stant stress of a battle which has turned against him. From 
this time he keeps away from the great centres of popu- 
lation, except when, on two occasions — at the Feast of 
Tabernacles and the Feast of the Dedication — he flashes 
for a day on Jerusalem, and then disappears again into 
some haunt of outlaws, or of wild beasts. This portion 



HEROISM. 283 

of his life comprises something less than the last twelve 
months, from the summer of the second year of his 
ministry till the eve of the last Passover, at Easter, in 
the third year. 

In glancing at the main facts of this period, as we have 
done in the former ones, we have to note chiefly his 
intercourse with the twelve apostles, and his preparation 
of them for the end of his own career and the beginning 
of theirs; his conduct at Jerusalem during those two 
autumnal and winter feasts, and the occasions when he 
again comes into collision with the rulers and Pharisees, 
both at these feasts, and in the intervals between them. 

The keynote of it, in spite of certain short and beauti- 
ful interludes, appears to me to be a sense of loneliness 
and oppression, caused by the feeling that he has work 
to do, and words to speak, which those for whom they 
are to be done and spoken, and whom they are, first of 
all men, to bless, will either misunderstand or abhor. 
Here is all the visible result of his labor and of his 
travail, and the enemy is gathering strength every day. 

This becomes clear, I think, at once, when, in the first 
days after his quitting the lake shores, he asks his dici- 
ples the question, " Whom do the world, and whom do 
ye, say that I am ? " He is answered by Peter in the well- 
known burst of enthusiasm, that, though the people only 
look on him as a prophet, such as Elijah or Jeremiah, 
his own chosen followers see in him "the Christ, the 
Son of the living God." 



284 TRUE MANLINESS. 

It is this particular moment which he selects for 
telling them distinctly, that Christ will not triumph as 
they regard triumphing ; that he will fall into the power 
of his enemies, and be humbled and slain by them. At 
once the proof comes of how little even the best of his 
own most intimate friends had caught the spirit of his 
teaching or of his kingdom. The announcement of his 
humiliation and death, which none but the most truthful 
and courageous of men would have made at such a 
moment, leaves them almost as much bewildered as the 
crowds in the lake cities had been a few days before. 

Their hearts are faithful and simple, and upon them, 
as Peter has testified, the truth has flashed once for all, 
and there can be no other Saviour of men than this man 
with whom they are living. Still, by what means and to 
what end the salvation shall come, they are scarcely less 
ignorant than the people who had been in vain seeking 
from him a sign such as they desired. His own elect 
" understood not his saying, and it was hid from them, 
that they perceived it not." Rather, indeed, they go 
straight from that teaching to dispute amongst them- 
selves who of them shall be the greatest in that king- 
dom which they understand so little. And so their 
Master has to begin again at the beginning of his 
teaching, and, placing a little child amongst them, to 
declare that not of such men as they deem themselves, 
but of such as this child, is the kingdom of heaven. 

The episode of the Transfiguration follows ; and 



HEROISM. 285 

immediately after it, as though purposely to warn even 
the three chosen friends who had been present against 
new delusions, he repeats again the teaching as to his 
death and humiliation. And he reiterates it whenever 
any exhibition of power or wisdom seems likely to en- 
courage the frame of mind in the twelve generally which 
had lately brought the great rebuke on Peter. How 
slowly it did its work, even with the foremost disciples, 
there are but too many proofs. 

Amongst his kinsfolk and the people generally, his 
mission, thanks to the cabals of the rulers and elders, 
had come by this time to be looked upon with deep 
distrust and impatience. " How long dost thou make 
us to doubt ? Go up to this coming feast, and there 
prove your title before those who know how to judge in 
such matters," is the querulous cry of the former as the 
Feast of Tabernacles approaches. He does not go up 
publicly with the caravan, which would have been at 
this time needlessly to incur danger, but, when the feast 
is half over, suddenly appears in the temple. There he 
again openly affronts the rulers by justifying his former 
acts, and teaching and proclaiming that he who has sent 
him is true, and is their God. 

It is evidently on account of this new proof of daring 
that the people now again begin to rally around him. 
'• Behold, he speaketh boldly. Do our rulers know that 
this is Christ ? " is the talk which fills the air, and induces 



286 TRUE MANLINESS. 

the scribes and Pharisees, for the first time, to attempt 
his arrest by their officers. 

The officers return without him, and their masters are, 
for the moment, powerless before the simple word of 
him who, as their own servants testify, " speaks as never 
man spake." But if they cannot arrest and execute, 
they may entangle him further, and prepare for their 
day, which is surely and swiftly coming. So they bring 
to him the woman taken in adultery, and draw from him 
the discourse in which he tells them that the truth will 
make them free — the truth which he has come to tell 
them, but which they will not hear, because they are of 
their father the devil. He ends with asserting his claim 
to the name which every Jew held sacred, " before 
Abraham was, I am." The narrative of the seventh 
and eighth chapters of St. John, which record these 
scenes at the Feast of Tabernacles, have, I believe, 
done more to make men courageous and truly manly 
than all the stirring accounts of bold deeds which ever 
were written elsewhere. 

CXXXIX. 

All that was best and worst in the Jewish character 
and history combined to render the Roman yoke in- 
tolerably galling to the nation. The peculiar position 
of Jerusalem — a sort of Mecca to the tribes acknowl- 
edging the Mosaic law — made Syria the most danger- 



BIGOTRY. 287 

ous of all the Roman provinces. To that city enormous 
crowds of pilgrims of the most stiff-necked and fanatical 
of all races flocked, three times at least in every year, 
bringing with them offerings and tribute for the temple 
and its guardians, on a scale which must have made the 
hierarchy at Jerusalem formidable even to the world's 
master, by their mere command of wealth. 

But this would be the least of the causes of anxiety 
to the Roman governor, as he spent year after year face 
to face with these terrible leaders of a terrible people. 

These high priests and rulers of the Jews were indeed 
quite another kind of adversaries from the leaders, 
secular or religious, of any of those conquered countries 
which the Romans were wont to treat with contemp- 
tuous toleration. They still represented living traditions 
of the glory and sanctity of their nation, and of Jerusa- 
lem, and exercised still a power over that nation which 
the most resolute and ruthless of Roman procurators 
did not care wantonly to brave. 

At the same time the yoke of high priest and scribe 
and Pharisee was even heavier on the necks of their own 
people than that of the Roman. They had built up a 
huge superstructure of traditions and ceremonies round 
the law of Moses, which they held up to the people as 
more sacred and binding than the law itself. This su- 
perstructure was their special charge. This was, accord- 
ing to them, the great national inheritance, the most 
valuable portion of the covenant which God had made 



288 TRUE MANLINESS. 

with their fathers. To them, as leaders of their na- 
tion — a select, priestly, and learned caste — this precious 
inheritance had been committed. Outside that caste, 
the dim multitude, " the people which knoweth not the 
law," were despised while they obeyed, accursed as soon 
as they showed any sign of disobedience. Such being 
the state of Judea, it would not be easy to name in all 
history a less hopeful place for the reforming mission of 
a young carpenter, a stranger from a despised province, 
one entirely outside the ruling caste, though of the royal 
race, and who had no position whatever in any rabbini- 
cal school. 

In Galilee the surroundings were slightly different, 
but scarcely more promising. Herod Antipas, the 
weakest of that tyrant family, the seducer of his brother's 
wife, the fawner on Caesar, the spendthrift oppressor of 
the people of his tetrarchy, still ruled in name over the 
country, but with Roman garrisons in the cities and 
strongholds. Face to face with him, and exercising an 
imperiwn in hitperio throughout Galilee were the same 
priestly caste, though far less formidable to the civil 
power and to the people, than in the southern province. 
Along the western coast of the Sea of Galilee, the chief 
scene of our Lord's northern ministry, lay a net-work of 
towns densely inhabited, and containing a large admix- 
ture of Gentile traders. This infusion of foreign blood, 
the want of any such religious centre as Jerusalem, and 
the contempt with which the southern Jews regarded 



BIGOTRY. 289 

their provincial brethren of Galilee, had no doubt 
loosened to some extent the yoke of the priests and 
scribes and lawyers in that province. But even here 
their tradition ary power over the masses of the people 
w r as very great, and the consequences of defying their 
authority as penal, though the penalty might be neither 
so swift or so certain, as in Jerusalem itself. Such was 
the society into which Christ came. 

It is not easy to find a parallel case in the modern 
world, but perhaps the nearest exists in a portion of 
our own empire. The condition of parts of India in 
our day resembles in some respects that of Palestine in 
the year a. d. 30. In the Mahratta country, princes, 
not of the native dynasty, but the descendants of foreign 
courtiers (like the Idumean Herods), are reigning. Brit- 
ish residents at their courts, hated and feared, but 
practically all-powerful as Roman procurators, answer 
to the officers and garrisons of Rome in Palestine. The 
people are in bondage to a priestly caste scarcely less 
heavy than that which weighed on the Judean and Gal- 
ilean peasantry. If the Mahrattas were Mohammedans, 
and Mecca were situate in the territory of Scindia or 
Holkar ; if the influence of twelve centuries of Christian 
training could be wiped out of the English character, 
and the stubborn and fierce nature of the Jew substi- 
tuted for that of the Mahratta; a village reformer 
amongst them, whose preaching outraged the Brahmins, 
threatened the dynasties, and disturbed the English resi- 



290 TRUE MANLINESS. 

dents, would start under somewhat similar conditions to 
those whieh surrounded Christ when he commenced his 
ministry. 

In one respect, and one only, the time seemed 
propitious. The mind and heart of the nation was full 
of the expectation of a coming Messiah — a King who 
should break every yoke from off the necks of his 
people, and should rule over the nations, sitting on the 
throne of David. The intensity of this expectation had, 
in the opening days of his ministry, drawn crowds into 
the wilderness beyond Jordan from all parts of Judea 
and Galilee, at the summons of a preacher who had 
caught up the last cadence of the song of their last 
great prophet, and was proclaiming that both the deliver- 
ance and the kingdom which they were looking for were 
at hand. In those crowds who flocked to hear John the 
Baptist there were doubtless some even amongst the 
priests and scribes, and many amongst the poor Jewish 
and Galilean peasantry, who felt that there was a 
heavier yoke upon them than that of Rome or of 
Herod Antipas. But the record of the next three years 
shows too clearly that even these were wholly unpre- 
pared for any other than a kingdom of this world, and 
a temporal throne to be set up in the holy city. 

And so, from the first, Christ had to contend not only 
against the whole of the established powers of Pales- 
tine, but against the highest aspirations of the best of 
his countrymen. These very Messianic hopes, in fact, 



TOLERATION. 291 

proved the greatest stumbling-block in his path. Those 
who entertained them most vividly had the greatest 
difficulty in accepting the carpenter's son as the promised 
Deliverer. A few days only before the end he had 
sorrowfully to warn the most intimate and loving of his 
companions and disciples, " Ye know not what spirit ye 
are of." 



CXL. 

The Jews were always thinking of their exclusive 
religious privileges, of the sacredness of the Temple 
and of the law, and of the questionable and dangerous 
position of those who were outside the covenant. Now 
this habit of mind, undoubtedly religious as it was, is 
not held up to our admiration in the New Testament, 
but the contrary. It is denounced as being the opposite 
of a true spirituality. It is shown to us as associated 
with intolerance, bigotry, hardness, cruelty, as most 
offensive to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and 
fruitful of mischief in the world. St. Paul had to 
undergo the reproach of being disloyal to the religion 
of his fathers, because he contended against this eccle- 
siastical spirit. But the reproach was as unjust as it 
was painful to him. He loved the holy city and the 
temple and the ordinances of the law and his kindred 
according to the flesh; but he knew that the proper 



292 TRUE MANLINESS. 

aim of a devout man was not to hedge round an 
organization, but to glorify and bear witness to the 
Divine Spirit. 



CXLI. 

Not St. Paul only, but all the Apostles and Evangel- 
ists, were continually contemplating the heavenly glory 
of a brotherhood of men in full harmony with each other 
because all joined to Christ, of men walking in humility 
and meekness and love, endeavoring to keep the unity 
of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is nothing in 
such an ideal less suited to us to-day than to the Chris- 
tians of the first age. For ourselves, and for our neigh- 
bors and fellow-men, this hope should be in our hearts, 
this Divine ideal before our eyes. Let us believe that 
it is the Divine purpose, and that we are called to the 
fulfilment of it. 



CXLII. 

Is it not an express principle in the teaching of our 
Lord himself and of his Apostles, that means and in- 
struments and agencies are not to be worshipped in 
themselves but to be estimated with reference to the end 
they are to promote ? Think, for example, what is im- 
plied in that pregnant sentence, " The Sabbath was 



TOLERATION. 293 

made for man, and not man for the Sabbath." Means 
and instruments are not dishonored by this principle. 
If the end they serve is high and precious, they also will 
deserve to be valued. If the spiritual freedom of man 
is important, then the ordinance of a Day of Rest, 
which ministers to it, may well be sacred. But it is often 
appointed in the Providence of God that an apparent 
dishonor should be cast on means, that the minds of 
men may be forced away from resting upon them. And 
means may be varied, according to circumstances, 
whilst the same permanent end is to be sought. 



CXLIII. 

Wherever there is good, in whatever Samaritan or 
heathen we may see kindness and the fear of God, 
there we are to welcome it and rejoice in it in our 
Father's name. 

There is no respect of persons with God, no accept- 
ance of any man on account of his religion or his pro- 
fession ; under whatever religious garb, he that loveth 
is born of God, he that doeth righteousness is born of 
God. There is no danger in being ready to appreciate 
simple goodness and to refer it to the working of the 
Divine Spirit wherever we may find it; there is the 
greatest danger in failing to appreciate it. This is 
doctrine of unquestionable Divine authority, which we 



294 TRUE MANLINESS. 

may often have opportunities of putting into practice. 
Let us remember to cherish it in all our dealings with 
those who do not belong to our own church. Let us be 
afraid lest nature and the flesh should make us intoler- 
ant and unsympathetic ; let us be sure that Christ and 
the Spirit would win us to modesty and reverence and 
sympathy. 

CXLIV. 

" There is one body and one spirit, even as ye were 
called in one hope of your calling ; one Lord, one faith, 
one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above 
all and through all and in all." With this unity, there 
are distinctions of function ; and each member, St. Paul 
holds, has his own gift of endowment to enable him to 
fill his own place. Christ is the great Giver, and be- 
sides these gifts to the several members of the body, he 
gave to the body as a whole the apostles, prophets, 
evangelists, pastors, and teachers, by whose various 
ministries sinful and self-willed men were to be moulded 
into true members, and ultimate perfecting of the body 
to be accomplished. St. Paul looked forward in hope 
to the time when the Body of Christ might be not only 
ideally perfect, but actually perfect also, in its adult 
growth and in the harmonious co-operation of all its 
parts. 



THE POLITICIAN. 295 



CXLV. 



There may be every sort of defect and irregularity in 
the men and women whom Christ has called to be his 
members. The unity is not made by them, and does 
not depend upon them. Their business is to keep the 
unity, to conform themselves to it. The supernatural 
body of Christ is the ideal one, and it is realized with 
various degrees of imperfection wherever men acknowl- 
edge Christ as their head. 



CXLVI. 

As I understand the word " politician," it means a 
man who, whatever his other engagements in life may 
be, and however he may earn his daily bread, feels 
above all things deeply interested, feels that he is bound 
to be deeply interested, and to take as active a part as 
he can, in the public affairs of his country. I believe 
that every Englishman, if he is worth anything at all, 
is bound to be a politician, and can't for the life of him 
help taking a deep interest in the public affairs of his 
country. The object of politics is the well-being of the 
nation, or in other words to make " a wise and under- 
standing people." Now, what are the means by which 
a wise and an understanding people is to be made ? 
Well, of course, the chief means of making a wise and 



296 TRUE MANLINESS. 

understanding people is by training them up in wisdom 
and understanding. The State wants men who are 
brave, truthful, generous ; the State wants women who 
are pure, simple, gentle. By what means is the State to 
get citizens of that kind ? 

Such a politician looking around him and seeing how 
the national conscience is to be touched — for unless 
the national conscience be touched you can never raise 
citizens of that kind — finds that the great power which 
alone can do it, is that which goes by the name of 
religion. 

CXLVII. 

The true work of the Liberal Party in a Liberal age 
is, with singleness of purpose and all its might, to lift 
the people to a fair and full share of all the best things 
of this life, — its highest culture, hopes, aspirations, 
burdens — as well as its loaves and fishes — and, setting 
before them a truly noble ideal of citizenship, to help 
them to attain it. Whatever goes beyond that, or 
beside that, savors of Jacobinism, for then comes in 
that jealousy which is the bane of true democracy. 
The true democrat has no old scores to pay, covets no 
man's good things, wants nothing for himself which is 
not open to his neighbors, will destroy nothing which 
others value merely because he doesn't value it himself, 
unless it is palpably and incurably unjust and unright- 



THE POLITICIAN. 297 

eous. I need not go on to contrast the Jacobin with 
him, beyond saying that the one is before all things 
constructive, the other destructive. 



CXLVIII. 

A liberal politician is a man who looks to the future 
and not to the past ; he looks for progress ; he desires 
to see the whole nation raised ; he desires to go on from 
better things to better things, and he is not afraid of 
new things j he holds that every institution must be 
tried by its worth and its value to the nation ; — he holds 
above all things that there should be equality before the 
law for every institution, for every society, and for 
every individual citizen. 

CXLIX. 

Alfred the Great had his problems of anarchy, wide- 
spread lawlessness, terrorism, to meet. After the best 
thought he could give to the business, he met them and 
prevailed. Like diseases call for like cures ; and we 
may assume without fear that a remedy which has been 
very successful in one age is at least worth looking at 
in another. 

We too, like Alfred, have our own troubles — our 
land-questions, labor-questions, steady increase of pau- 
perism, and others. In our struggle for life we fight 



298 TRUE MANLINESS. 

with different weapons, and have our advantages of one 
kind or another over our ancestors ; but when all is said 
and done there is scarcely more coherence in the Eng- 
lish nation of to-day than in that of 1079. Individual- 
ism, no doubt, has its noble side ; and " every man for 
himself " is a law which works wonders ; but we cannot 
shut our eyes to the fact that under their action English 
life has become more and more disjointed, threatening 
in some directions altogether to fall to pieces. What we 
specially want is something which shall bind us more 
closely together. Every nation of Christendom is feel- 
ing after the same thing. The need of getting done in 
some form that which frank-pledge did for Alfred's peo- 
ple expresses itself in Germany in mutual-credit banks, 
open to every honest citizen ; in France, in the produc- 
tive associations of all kinds ; at home, in our co-opera- 
tive movements and trades-union. 

No mere machinery, nothing that governments or legis- 
latures can do in our day, will be of much help, but they 
maybe great hindrances. The study of the modern states- 
man must be how to give such movements full scope 
and a fair chance, so that the people may be able with- 
out let or hindrance to work out in their own way the 
principle which Alfred brought practically home to his 
England, that in human society men cannot divest them- 
selves of responsibility for their neighbors, and ought 
not to be allowed to attempt it. 



THE POLITICIAN. 299 

CL. 

The more attentively we study Alfred's life, the more 
clearly does the practical wisdom of his methods of gov- 
ernment justify itself by results. Of strong princes, with 
minds " rectified and prepared " on the Mechiavellian 
model, the world has had more than enough, who have 
won kingdoms for themselves, and used them for them- 
selves, and so left a bitter inheritance to their children 
and their people. It is well that, here and there in his- 
tory, we can point to a king whose reign has proved 
that the highest success in government is not only com- 
patible with, but dependent upon, the highest Christian 
morality. 

CLI. 

Think well over your important steps in life, and 
having made up your minds, never look behind. 



CLII. 

A gentleman should shrink from the possibility of 
having to come on others, even on his own father, for 
the fulfilment of his obligations, as he would from a lie. 
I would sooner see a son of mine in his grave than 
crawling on through life a slave to wants and habits 
which he must gratify at other people's expense. 



3 oo TRUE MANLINESS. 

CLIII. 

No two men take a thing just alike, and very few 
can sit down quietly when they have lost a fall in 
life's wrestle, and say, " Well, here I am, beaten no 
doubt this time. By my own fault too. Now, take a 
good look at me, my good friends, as I know you all 
want to do, and say your say out, for I mean getting up 
again directly and having another turn at it." 



CLIV. 

No man who is worth his salt can leave a place where 
he has gone through hard and searching discipline, and 
been tried in the very depths of his heart, without re- 
gret, however much he may have winced under the dis- 
cipline. It is no light thing to fold up and lay by for 
ever a portion of ones life, even when it can be laid by 
with honor and in thankfulness. 



INDEX 







PAGE. 


Ambition 


civ — cv 


2 03 


Belief, Religious 


. lxxvii — lxxxiv . 


I36 


Bigotry 


. cxxxix — 


285 


Courage 


. i — xviii 


J 3 


Christianity 


cxi — cxxv . 


218 


Death 


lxxiii — lxxvi . 


117 


Discipline . 


cxxxii — cxxxiv . 


264 


Doubt 


cvi — ex 


206 


Education . 


exxvi — exxvii . 


248 


Enjoyment . 


xlvi — lii 


72 


Faith . 


liii — lvi 


82 


Friendship . 


xlii — xlv 


68 


Government 


xcviii — ciii 


190 


Heroism 


exxxvi — exxxviii 


279 


Human Nature . 


lxi — lxxii . 


104 


Humility . 


xxv — xxvi 


4i 


Influence, Personal 


lxxxv — lxxxix . 


143 


Patience 


lviii — lx 


93 


ccci. 







CCC11. 



Index. 







PAGE. 


Providence 


cxxxi — 


256 


Politician The . 


cxlvi — cliv 


2 95 


Power 


xxvii — xxxiv . 


43 


Purity 


Ivii — 


9 1 


Reforms 


xc — xcvii . 


155 


Rest . 


cxxviii — cxxx . 


250 


Rights, Woman's . 


. cxxxv — ? . 


276 


Strength . 


xix — xxiv 


34 


Success 


xxxv — xli 


60 


Toleration 


cxl — cxlv 


291 



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WOEKEBS. 

VIRGINIA. By JF. H. G.Kingston. 16 mo. 

Illustrated . . . . . . . $i 25 

A stirring story of adventure upon sea and land. 

AFRICAN ADVENTURE AND ADVENT- 
URERS. By Rev. G. T. Day, D. D. 16 
mo. Illustrated . . . . 1 50 

The stories of Speke, Grant, Baker, Livingstone and Stanley 
are put into simple shape for the entertainment of young readers. 

NOBLE WORKERS. Edited by S. F Smith, 

D. D. i6mo. . . . . . . 1 5a 

STORIES OF SUCCESS. Edited by S. F. 

Smith, D. D. i6mo . . . . . 1 50 

Inspiring biographies and records which leave a most whole- 
some and enduring effect upon the reader. 

MYTHS AND HEROES. 16 mo. Illus- 
trated. Edited by S. F Smith, D. D . . 150 

KNIGHTS AND SEA KINGS. Edited by 

S. F Smith, D. D. 121110. Illustrated . 1 50 

Two entertaining books, which will fasten forever the historical 
and geographical lessons of the school-room firmly in the stu- 
dent's mind. 

CHAPLIN'S LIFE OF BENJAMIN FRANK- 
LIN. i6mo. Illustrated . . . . 1 50 

LIFE OF AMOS LAWRENCE. i 2 mo. 111. 150 

Two biographies of perennial value. No worthier books were 
ever offered as holiday presents for our American young men. 

WALTER NEAL'S EXAMPLE. By Rev. 

Theron Brown. 16 mo. Illustrated . .125 

Walter Neal's Example is by Rev. Theron Brown, the editor of 
that very successful paper, The Youth' 's Companion. The story 
is a touching one, and is in parts so vivid as to seem drawn from 
the life. — N. Y. Independent. 

TWO FORTUNE-SEEKERS. Stories by 
Rossiter Johnson, Louise Chandler Moulton, 
E. Stuart Phelps, Ella Farman, etc. Fully 
illustrated 1 50 



3/TISS CTTJXjI^. .A.. E-A.ST3VE^.3<r is one of the most popular 
of our modern writers. 

YOUNG RICK. By Julia A. Eastman. Large 

161110. Twelve illustrations by Sol Eytinge . $i 50 

A bright, fascinating story of a little boy who was both a bless- 
ing and a bother. — Boston Journal. 

The most delightful book on the list for the children of the 
family, being full of adventures and gay home scenes and merry 
play-times. "Paty" would have done credit to Dickens in his 
palmiest days. The strange glows and shadows of her character 
are put in lovingly and lingeringly, with the pencil of a master. 
Miss Margaret's character of light is admirably drawn, while Aunt 
Lesbia, Deacon Harkaway, Tom Dorrance, and the master and 
mistress of Graythorpe poor-house are genuine "charcoal 
sketches." 

STRIKING FOR THE RIGHT. By Julia 

A. Eastman. Large i6mo. Illustrated . 1 75 

While this story holds the reader breathless with expectancy 
and excitement, its civilizing influence in the family is hardly to 
be estimated. In all quarters it has met with the warmest praise. 

THE ROMNEYS OF RIDGEMONT. By 

Julia A. Eastman. i6mo. Illustrated . 1 50 
BEULAH ROMNEY. By Julia A. Eastman. 

16 mo. Illustrated . . . . 1 50 

Two stories wondrously alive, flashing with fun, sparkling with 
tears, throbbing with emotion. The next best thing to attending 
Mrs. Hale's big boarding-school is to read Beulah's experience 
there. 

SHORT-COMINGS AND LONG-GOINGS. 

By Julia A. Eastman. 16 mo. Illustrated. 1 25 

A remarkabls book, crowded with remarkable characters. It 
is a picture gallery of human nature. 

KITTY KENT'S TROUBLES. By Julia 

A. Eastman. 16 mo. Illustrated . . 1 50 

" A delicious April-day style of book, sunshiny with smiles on 
one page while the next is misty with tender tears. Almost every 
type of American school-girl is here represented— the vain Helen 
Dart, the beauty, Amy Searle, the ambitious, high bred, conserv- 
ative Anna Matson ; but next to Kitty herself sunny little Paul- 
ine Sedgewick will prove the general favorite. It is a story fully 
calculated to win both girls and boys toward noble, royal ways ot 
doin/ ,^Ule as well as great things. All teachers should feel an 
intef 1, in placing it in the hands of their pupils." 



" 3VHISS ZEXA-ZR/HVI-A-ZCT has the very desirable knack of imparting 
valuable ideas under the guise of a pleasing story." — The New Cenhiry. 

MRS. HURD'S NIECE. By Ella Farman. 111. $i 50 

A thrilling story for the girls, especially for those who think 
they have a " mission," to whom we commend sturdy English 
Hannah, with her small means, and her grand success. Saidee 
Hurd is one of the sweetest girls ever embalmed in story, and 
Lois Gladstone one of the noblest. 

THE COOKING CLUB OF TU-WHIT 
HOLLOW. By Ella Farman. 16 mo. 
Eight full-page illustrations . . . . 1 25 

Worth reading by all who delight in domestic romance. — Fall 
River Daily News. 

The practical instructions in housewifery, which are abundant, 
are set in the midst of a bright, wholesome story, and the little 
housewives who figure in it are good specimens of very human, 
but at the same time very lovable, little American girls. It 
ought to be the most successful little girls' book of the season. — 
The Advance- 

A LITTLE WOMAN. By Ella Farman. 16m. 1 00 

The daintiest of all juvenile books. From its merry pages, win- 
some Kinnie Crosby has stretched out her warm little hand to 
help thousands of young girls. 

A WHITE HAND. By Ella Farman. 12m. 111. 1 50 

A genuine painting of American society. Millicent and Jack 
are drawn by a bold, firm hand. No one can lay this story down 
. until the last leaf is turned. 



WIDE AWAKE. 

AN ILLUSTRATED MAGAZINE 

For the Young Folks. 

$2. OO IFIEZR, J±2STJ<njl*r. POSTAG-E -piR/ZEZP-A^'ID. 

Edited by ELLA FARMAN. 

Published by D. LOTHEOP & CO., Boston, Mass. 



It always contains a feast of fat things for the little folks, andfolks who are no 
longer little findjthere lost childhood in its pages. We are not saying too much 
when we say that its versatile editor — Ella Farman, is more fully at home 
in the child's wonder-land than any other living American writer. She is 
thoroughly en rapport with her readers, gives them now a sugar plum of poesy, 
now a dainty jelly-cake of imagination, and cunningly intermixes all the solid 
bread of thought that the child's mind can digest and assimilate. — York True 
Democrat. 



IE 3 .A. 3SI S 3T ' S jP^VG-IE 



FOUR GIRLS AT CHAUTAUQUA. By 



Pansy. 12 mo. Illustrated 

The most fascinating "watering-place'' story ever published. 
Four friends, each a brilliant girl in her way, tired of Saratoga 
and Newport, try a fortnight at the new summer resort on Chau- 
tauqua Lake, choosing the time when the National Sunday-school 
Assembly is in camp. Rev. Drs. Vincent, Deems, Cuyler, Ed- 
ward Eggleston, Mrs. Emily Huntington Miller, move promi- 
nently through the story. 

HOUSEHOLD PUZZLES. By Pansy. i 2 mo. 
Illustrated ....... 

How to make one dollar do the work of five. A family of 
beautiful girls seek to solve this "puzzle." Piquant, humorous, 
but written with an intense purpose. 

THE RANDOLPHS. By Pansy. 12 mo. Il- 
lustrated ....... 

A sequel to Household Puzzles, in which the Puzzles are agree- 
ably disposed of. 

GRANDPA'S DARLINGS. By Pansy. 16 mo. 
Illustrated ....... 

A big book, full of "good times" for the little people of the 
family. 

ESTER RIED 

JULIA RIED 

THREE PEOPLE 

THE KING'S DAUGHTER 

WISE AND OTHERWISE . 

CUNNING WORKMEN . 

JESSIE WELLS . 

DOCLVS JOURNAL . 

BERNIE'S WHITE CHICKEN 

HELEN LESTER. 

A CHRISTMAS TIME 



1 50 



1 5° 



1 5° 



. By Pansy 


• I 50 


• >> 


. I 50 


• » 


. I 50 


?) 


. I 5° 


• ?) 


. I 50 


• >j 


. I 25 


it 


• 75 


• J) 


75 


• It 


75 


11 


75 


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The $1000 Prize Series 

Pronounced by the Examining- Committee, Rrv. Drs. 

Lincoln, Rankin a?id Day, superior to 

any similar series. 



Striking for the Right, 


■ #1-75 


Silent Tom, - 


- i.75 


Evening Rest, - 


- 1.50 


The Old Stone House, 


- 1.50 


Into the Light, - 


- 1.50 


Walter McDonald, - 


- 1.50 


Story of the Blount Family, - 


- 1.50 


Margaret Worthington, 


- 1.50 


The Wadsworth Boys, 


- 1.50 


Gr4.ce Avery's Influence, - 


- 1.50 


Glimpses Through, - - - 


- i.5<J 


Ralph's Possession, - 


- 1.50 


Luck of Alden Farm, 


- 1.50 


Chronicles of Sunset Mountain, 


- 1.50 


The Marble Preacher, 


- 1.50 


Golden Lines, 


- 1.50 



Sold by Booksellers generally, and sent by Mail, postpaid^ 
on receipt of price* 



BOSTON: 
D. LOTHROP & CO., PUBLISHERS.' 



